Two nights' public discussion between Thomas Cooper and Mr. C. Bradlaugh : on the being of a God as the maker and moral governor of the universe, held at the Hall of Science, London, February 1st and 3rd, 1864

Reduced to Sixpence.

I TWO SI9I6HTS'

PUBLIC DISCUSSION

1

BETWEEN

THOMAS COOr>ER

AND

MR. C BRA.DLAUGHI.

On the Being of a God as the Maker and Moral
Governor of the Universe.

Held at the Hall of Science, London, February \st
and ^rdj 1864.

^^ LONDON :

^TWatts, 17, Johnson's Court, Fleet.St., E.G. ;
E. Truelove, 256, High Holborn.

.immTTrmAunmtk

«M««^

,.'^ ^'^^■^s>mm'^

Second edition, nearly onc-third larger, revised and mostly re

with special preface, price One Shilling, |

THE IMPEACHMENT j

OF THE

HOUSE OF BRUNSWICI

BY C. BRADLAUGH.

Chapter I.— Introduction, stating the grounds for Rep
of the Act of Settlement.

Chapter II.— The Reign of George the First.
Chapter III.— The Reign of George the Second.
Chapter IV.— The Reign of George the Third.
Chapter V.— The Reign of George the Fourth.
Chapter VI.— The Reign of William the Fourth.
Chapter VII.— Remarks on the Present Reign.

WITH PORTRAIT, PRICE THREEPENCE, THE

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

OF

CHARLES BRADLAUGI

A PAGE OF HIS LIFE.

In consequence of the National Reformer of August 31st, running
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lished in a separate form, and can now be had. Persons who wis]
circulate it, can have three or more copies post free at threepence es

Price Sixpence,

WHEN WEKE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN

By C. Bradlaugh.

A Second Edition has just been issued, containing the Rej
to the Religious Tract Society.

London: C. Watts, 17, Johnson's Court, Fleet Street.

l^iW-;;^^

TWO NIGHTS'

PUBLIC DISCUSSION

BETWEEN

THOMAS COOPER AND CHAEIES BEADIATJGH,

<m XflB BEING OF A GOD AS THE MAKER AKD MOKAL
GOVERNOR OF THE UNIYERSB.

t the Sail of Science:, London, Feb. 1st and 3rd, 1864,

TO WHICH IS ADDED

A PLEA FOE ATHEISM,

LONDON:

AUSTIN AND CO., 17, JOHNSON'S COUET,
GouuH Squaee, e.g.

1864.

DISCUSSIOlSr BETWEE"Nr MR. THOMAS COOPER AND
MR. CHARLES BRADLAUGH.

FiRbT NTGHT.

On Monday, the 1st of February, a discussion was begun at the Hall
of Science between Mr. Thomas Cooper, some time Freethinker,
and recent convert, also the well-known author of the ** Pur-
gatory of Suicides," and Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, who has, for
some years past, acquired a very wide spread reputation as lec-
turer under the name of" Iconoclast," and has devoted the time
which is not occupied by his professional avocations in the elimi-
nation of secular and religious anomalies.

The chair was occupied by James Harvey, Esq. The follow-
ing was the order of the discussion as stated in the published
programme : —

1. Mr. Cooper to state the Argument for the Being of God, as
the Maker of the Universe, on the First Night — and the Argu-
ment for the Being of God, as the Moral Governor of the Uni-
verse, on the Second Night ; and each statement not to extend
beyond half-an-hour.

2. Mr. Bradlaugh to state the Argument on the Negative side,
each night ; and each statement not to extend beyond half-an*^
hour.

3. Not more than a quarter of an hour to be allowed for reply
and counter-reply, to the end.

4. No written speeches to be delivered, and no long extracts
from printed books or papers to be read on either side.

5. The chair to be taken at seven o'clock, and the Discussion
to conclude, as nearly as possible, at ten, each evening.

The Chairman said : I have consented to take the chair to-night,
both by request of Mr. Cooper and some friends, and with the
conaent of Mr. Charles Bradlaugh ; and I think I shall have your
con«)entalso during the discussion which takes place this evening.
You well know that the duty and power of a chairman is very
limited, being entirely confined to the preservation of order ; and
unless he has the support of those over whom he presides, his
authority is of little avail. I trust, therefore, that you will listen to
the arguments that will be addressed to you to-night. There mufe*-
>A course, be great difference of opinion on every abstract question,

2

otherwise there would be no reason for discussion ; so that every
iady and gentleman who comes here may be presumed to have
formed an opinion beforehand ; but trustinj? to your forbearance, I
have no doubt that we shall be able to get throug:h the business of
the evening without any unseemly interruption. I feel it is a very
important matter that we have under discussion, respecting not
only us who have met to take a part, but humanity in general.
It is " Whether there be a God?" And I hope that whatever
arguments may be adduced, you will patiently hear the
speaker to the end (hear, hear), that a speech shall not be inter-
rupted in the middle of a sentence ; that you will listeu thought-
fully and decide candidly. If we act on this principle, if we en-
tertain this spirit, we shall be conscious that we have not
lost our evening. I am sure that you will hear both parties fully
out, and support any decision at which I may arrive under the
circumstances (hear, hear.) Mr. Cooper will occupy half-an-
hour in introducing the subject — "For the Being of God, as
Maker of the Universe, and for the Being of God as the Gover-
nor of the Universe.*' Mr, Bradlaugh will then state the Argu-
ment on the Negative side, and will also occupv half-an*hour.
After that each speaker will occupy a quarter of an hour, or as
much less time as he pleases. In that case, it is the more neces-
sary that a speaker should not be stopped in the midst of a sen-
tence which the argument may require to be completed ; nor
should he be called to time at the exact moment the quarter of
an hour has elapsed. I mention this that no gentleman may
think I am dealing with one more favourably than the other. I
now call on Mr. Cooper, who will take the affirmative of each
statement, tosta*e the case on his side, but not to exceed a period
of time beyond half-an-hour. (Hear and cheers.)

Me. Cooper then rose, and was received with cheers. He said :
Eight years have elapsed since I stood in this Hall. It was on
the 13th of February, 1856, when I told my audience that I
could not lecture on Sweden, the subject which had been an-
nounced. I told them that my mind was undergoing a change.
This hall was closed against me. I need not say why. Mr. Bendall
was ill, and the Hall in John Street was shut, so I was left without
the means of earning bread. Aftet awhile I was allowed to
go down into the cellar of the Board of Health and copy letters
—seventy words for a penny. It was drudgery, and poor Frank
Grant, who is since dead, and a well known person also since
deceased, said to me — " Why, it is enough to madden a man like
you V But a man who could undergo two years' imprisonment
in the cause of truth, was not to bo deterred by drudgery. Mr.
Bendall applied to me. It was before he was struck down with
paralysis. I did not ar^ply to him, but he came to me, and told rue
I must come to this Hall, ^ow, during the years I lectured

3

faere, there were few men whom I respected more than Mr. Ben-
dall, 80 I recommenced here on the 21st ot September, 1856, and
concluded on the 13:h of May, 1858. I be^an with the ** Design
Argument," and continued to lecture in this hall for a vear and
nine months. An hour was allowed for discussion. For five
years and eight months I have maintained my convictions : one
year and eight months I was in Scotland, and four years in Eng-
Jand. I have lectured in chapels, on platforms, in churches and
in pulpits. Owing to the kindness of Mr. Bendall, who has given
the use of this hall for two nights — this night and Wednesday night
I am again enabled to address you. 1 am accompanied by some
Christian friends and ministers of the gospel. I assure you I
address you in the spirit of kindness, although I think some of
you have not said the best things of me, or allowed the best
things to be said of me (hear and dissent.) I come, then, out of
kindness to you to propose this argument for the being of God.
It is an argument carrying me to the very door of the proposi-
tion that accompanies it, and one which I have revolved in my
mind during the five years and eight months that I have been
absent from you. It has been repeated to you so often, it has
been talked about so constantly, that there can be no mistake
^bout it. I am. I know that I exist ; I ara conscious of it. I, a
reasoning, conscious, intelligent, personal existence. But I have
Dot had this personal, conscious, intelligent existence very long.
I have not long existed, but something must have existed before
DQe. Somethlug must have always existed ; for if there had been
bever anything in existence, there must have been nothing still,
bid because nothing cannot make something — something alone
iTiakes, originates, causes something to exist. Thus far, then, I
:r)mk we are all agreed. I have said I am a personal, conscious,
ntelligent existence. Now either this personal, conscious, intel-
'sent existence has always existed, or it began to be. If it began
o be, it has had a cause— indeed, if it has not always existed,

ut began to exist, it must have had a cause, and must have been
ither intelligent or non-intelligent-. But non-intelligence can-
lot create intelligence. You might as well tell me that the
noon is made of green cheese, or the sun of Dorset butter, that
in r)ak leaf is the Atlantic ocean, or that Windsor Castle is London
Br idge, as to tell me that non-intelligence can cause to exist a
horoughly conscious, perfect intelligence. Therefore, this per-
onal, conscious intelligence is itself the result or the effect of
in intelligence pre-existing, which is the cause from which I derive
ay existence^ the same to which men make reference when
hey speak of God. But I diectrn that there is everywhere
lot only something that has always existed everywhere,

discern also that there is no such a thing as "nowhere;"
h^j:e never was "nowhere," there cannot be "nowhere."

Do you feel Inclined to dispute this proposition? Try, then,
to imagine * nowhere." Where will you go ? — beyond the |
groat solar system ? You may go on for millions and
millions of miles, still there is somewhere. If you try to imagiii*
nowhere, you gradually begin to apprehend that there is "everji*"-
wfiere," and that intelligence always has existed everywhere.
You say, then, that something has always existed everywhere.
Can you conceive of that something having existed for nothing ?
Then there is no such thing as nothing ; there never was nothing ;
there never could have bem nothing. Something must always
have been, and been everywhere. If we decide thus, we have aj
right to say that something is not only everywhere, but on every
point of everywhere ; and if this chain of reasoning be broken,
there is no line of demarcation to separate one part from the other.
So we come to the idea of motion. I am gifted with certain
senses, and I come to discern motion by a comparison of the
relation of different objects to each other. I observe motion to
be an attribute of matter. By a conscious intuition, we are able
to perceive, and, by the aid of reason, to discern that this personal
existence, this preceding cause, is everywhere present, that it is
an eternal, conscious, uuderived, uncreated, uncaused Being whom
aaen worship and call God. (Cheers.) So by this personal, con-
scious intelligence, men have communication with, and can per
ceive the outward features of this natural universe. But this
material universe is not the something that has always existed,
because it is in parts, because it is divisible, and the parts are
moveable one among the other, and not only moveable in the
serjse of motion, but separable in the sense of change. Thus
the fleshly clothing of this body is constantly changing. Our
bodies are not now the bodies we had in infancy, nor those
which we had ten years ao^o the same as we have now. But by
the exercise of the will, which is a part of intelligence, and this
will acting on matter — matter is separaole and moveable. So that
man is not one underived, uncreated, eternal existence. Yet
b\ his intelligent will, with the assistance of his organised
borly, which of itself cannot move matter, he can mould it into
various shapes and perform wonderful results — fitting, shaping,
adapting; and although we judge by these results that a man is
eitrcising the power ol intelligence, we cannot see him exercisinj*
it. You never saw a man contrive. You never saw a man
design. You cannot see that. It is only by analogy that you
can judge of it. There are three forces by which he acts — know-i
ledge, consciousness, and testimony, and by the aid of these i
he is constantly designing and contriving. If you come
to observe the fashion of an object, although you see no maker,
yet when you inspect it and observe the various parts of which
it is composed, their suitability and fitness for the purpose they

I

ulfil, then you presume that intelligence has been at work there,
,nd you recognise its operation, although you could not see it
ontrive or design. If I come to a piece of a fashion apparently
he most complicated, yet more remarkable when you understand
pj seeing how simple are the principles of its construction, then
3 my admiration called forth. And when I look on the curiously
vroueht body, and mark all its various parts ; when I examine
his eye with its wonderful lenses and pulleys, when I look over
his hand with all its wonderful contrivances of adaptation and fit-
less, as to render man lord of the endless plain and the wide
Qountain— even of the universe ; and still when I look on the
wonderful contrivances in the forms of the animals in creation, and
/onder at their entire adaptation to the wants of each — eyes and
ungs fitted to changes of the atmosphere, and yet so little change
n the atmosphere itself, and when I look at ** this brave over-
langing firmament fretted with golden fires,** and see their
ystems extend for millions and millions of miles pursuing their
everal ends, and going their refulgent round — I am filled with
houghts which make me humble, and I come to the conclusion
hat this universe has its conscious, personal, and intelligent
lesigner ; that he exists, that he is the author of my intelligencot
hat he is the author of the intelligence of the millions that sur-
ound me. He exists. I did not always exist, that, therefore, he
3 all-intelligent, and must be the author of the universe.
rinally, that since my will has such power over matter that he
nust be uncontrollable, and, therefore, all-powerful, since be has
)een able to produce this universe, he is over my existence, over
'our existence, and over every ©sistence ; that he is the great un-
reated, underived cause whom men reverence, and whom I call

j(

Mr. Cooper resumed his seat amidst very warm plaudits.

Mr. Beadlaugh rose and said : Sir, I have listened with con-
iderable attention, and with some disappointment, to the brief
ddress which has been delivered to us in proof of the position
^hich Mr. Cooper has taken upon himself to affirm this evening,
vhich position, if I understand it rightly, is that there is an all-
vise, all-existent, all-powerful, underived, uncaused, personal,
onscious, and intelligent being whom he (Mr. Cooper) calls God.
f saying it amounts to proof, then undoubtedly Mr. Cooper has
lemonstrated his position ; but if anything approaching to logical
(emonstration be required here this evening, then I shall respect*
ully submit that it has been utterly and entirely wanting in the
peech to which we have just listened. (Cheers and dissent.) Mr.
!3ooper tells us that something has always existed everywhere—
ome one thing, some one existence, some one being. All his
peech turns upon that. All his words mean nothing, except in
o far as they go to support that point. Just notice the conse-

«

qnences involved in the admissions contained in his affirmation
that there is only one existence. If God always was one exist-
ence, one eternal, omnipresent existence, beside whom nothing
else existed, what becomes of the statement made by Mr. Coopei
to-night, that the material universe is not that infinite existence,
but exists btside it ? There are thus two existences — the one
everywhere, and the other existing somewhere, although nowhere
remains for it. The one infinite is everywhere, beyond it there
cannot be any existence, and the finite universe has to exist out
side everywhere where existence is not. I will take it to be true
as put by Mr. Cooper, that this same one existence, which ha£
existed everywhere from eternity, is without motion, because, as
he says, motion implies going or moving from point to point :
existence being everywhere has nowhere to go ; because it is
always everywhere, and it cannot move from point to point any-
where. Just see, then, the lamentable position in which he
places Deity. If Deity be everywhere, and Deity, as he puts it
to you, made the universe, if made at all, it must have been
somewhere, it cannot have been on one of the points occupied by
Deity, for Mr. Cooper would hardly argue that two existences
can occupy the same point at the same time, from which it would
result that it cannot be in everywhere, and it cannot be anywhere
else, because there is nowhere else for it. There can have been no
making, because there was nothing to be made, everything being
already in existence, and there being not the slightest vacuum
for anything more. But the difficulty is more apparent when
you come to weigh his words. Surely if the word making means
anything, it involves the notion of some act ; and if so, how can
yoQ have an action without motion ? I should, indeed, like my
friend to explain this. He has evidently some very different
notions from those which I have. I want to know how we can
have the action of making without motion. I want to know how
Deity, which as Deity has been always motionless, has ever
moved to make the universe. We will examine the position still
further. My friend says that these are arguments derivable from
the fact of consciousness, and in illustration of this, he says — " I
exist. I am a personal, conscious, intelligent being. I have not
been always, and, therefore, there must have been some time
when I began to be. I am intelligent^ but have not been always,
and, therefore, I must have been caused by an intelligent being,
because non -intelligence cannot originate or create intelligence.*'
Whether he meant non-intelligence and intelligence as positive
existences, it is exceedingly difficult to understand, and it would
be worth while, if we are to follow out the argument, that Mr
Cooper should explain that to you, or else you will perhaps make
some mistake about it. What does he mean, I ask, by non-intel
ligence ? So far as I understand intelligence, it is a quality of a

mode of existence varying in various modes of existence, and we
only know mode of existence as finite. We cannot conceive the
Quality to be infinite, which we only know as appertaining to a
mode — that is, to the finite. I want Mr. Cooper to tell me how I
can reason from such a premiss, which only regards intelligence arf
a quality of mode^of the finite, up to what he puts to you as a
quality of the absolute. I confess that on a subject like this some
difference may be expected, and my opponent may rely on the
authority of great names ; but I say that I have not relinquished
my right to examine these great problems, and work out the
result if it be possible for my reason to attain them. He says,
then, that non-intelligence cannot form intelligence. I don't
wish to make mere verbal objections, or I might put it to him
that I do not understand what he means by intelligence being
formed at all, I must trouble him to make this point as clear to
my mind as it is to himself — before such an argument will con-
vince me much more is required. I have no doubt that such an
argument must have come to my friend's mind in some clearer
form before it carried conviction to him. He says, " This personal,
intelligent, conscious being had a cause.'* Yes ! I suppose every
effect must have had a cause. He tells us that analogy is a good
guide in working out a reasonable result. He uses it himself,
but he does not mean to say that> by analogy, he argues back
from effect to cause, and that, from himself, he would go back to
an uncaused cause. *' What exists merely as a cause exists for
the sake of something else, and, in the accomplishment of that
end, it consummates its own existence." ** A cause is simply
everything without which the effect would not result, and all
such concurring, the effect cannot but result." According to
these passages from Sir William Hamilton, "that which exists
as cause exists for the sake of something else." Effect is thus
the sequel to cnuse, and causes are but the means to ends. The
only way of dealing with this question of cause and effect is to
put it fraL'kly that every cause of which we can take cognisance,
is, at the same time, effect and cause, and that there is no cause
on which we can lay a finger, that is not the effect of cause pre-
cedent to it— you have an unbroken chain. I defy my friend to
maintain the proposition that, without discontinuity, there can
be origination. If he does not, his argument falls to the ground. But
I really labour under considerable difficulty arising from the fact
that my friend has used a large number of words and terms without
explaining to you or to me what he meant by them ? I really
must trouble him by pleading my ignorance as to the meaning
which he attaches to the word uncaused cause, for I frankly allow
that my reason does not enable me to comprehend the word un-
caused as applied to existence. I conceive existence only modal
of existence itself — the absolute I cannot conceive. I am not

of

8D!

Dei
k

8D

can
etc
stsi
odI;
fioi

8

enabled by my reason to go beyond modes of existence. I am" 2
not able by the aid of my intelligence to go beyond phenomena, v^j
and so reach the noumenon. Until he has enabled me to attach to| ^
these words, which he has used so gliby, a meaning of a definite' V
kind, I must confess my inability to appreciate his reasoning. ^
He would say that there is non-intelligence as well as intelli-
gence. If he does not mean that, his words have no meaning. He
has ?aid that non-intelligence could not produce intelligence.
That God by his will caused it. But how if intelligence be'
everywhere — infinite, one, eternal — if you cannot limit its dura-
tion in point of time or its extent in point of space, if it is so in-
definite that to follow it as far as the faintest trace of it can be
observed, it is infinitely intelligent, how can you talk about
non-intelligence at all ? If intelligence is everywhere, then non-
intelligence is not possible. My friend worked up his argument
to a strange sort of climax, that the personal, conscious, eternal,
infinite, omnipotent, intell gent being was what most men wor- ' 'JJ
shipped and called God. I take exception to that, and say that j
the word God does not, in the mind of any one, express that, ami
that in the minds of the majority of men it expresses somethin^i:
very different from that. Indeed, so far as I have been able to |
ascertain, the great mass of human kind have precisely opposite
notions when they are using the word God. All their ideas
concerning God comprehend the idea of human and fallible
action, and are held in connection with creeds involving contra-
dictions innumerable. The word God is the result of o'd tradi-
tions coming from one generation to another, from father to son,
from generation to generation. In no case is it the out-growth
of the unaided intelligence of the man who makes use of it. To
put it further. I say there are no two men who use the word
God in the same sense, and that it is a mere term which expresses
no fixed idea. It does not admit the preciseness of a definition,
nor can it be explained with an accuracy to admit the test of in-
quiry. The idea expressed by the word bears in most cases some
relation to what has gone before, and is useful when appealing
to the popular mind to cover deficiencies in the illogical argu-
ments addressed to it to account for the universe. Our friend
passed from the argument from consciousness to what is generally
known as the argument from design. He said that, having seen
the result of man's contrivance, if he met with a piece of work
fashioned after a peculiar manner with a view to a particular end,
he should expect from analogy some contriver for it. But sup-
pose he had never seen any result of contrivance at all — how
much would his argument help him ? In that case he must en-
tirely fail, and in this how little does design help him here ? To
afiSrm origination from design of already existing substance, and
by analogy it is only of this he can give us any illustratioDi in-

9

rolves a manifest contradiction. The argnment distinguishes not
he absolute from the material, the conditioned. It is the finite
\rhich he tells you is God, and yet cannot be God. There is
iu utter want of analogy. It is impossible to reason from design
)f that which is already existing, and thus to prove the creation
k that which before did not exist. There is not a particle of
kualogy between these two propositions. But further, if it were
leedful to argue on it, if our friend had put before you the
lesign argument, it is still utterly wanting as an argnment for
n infinite Deity, being one entirely from analogy. Analogy
annot demonstrate the infinite wisdom, or the infinite, the
ternal existence of God. It cannot demonstrate infinity of sub-
tance, for to reason from finite effects as illustrations, analogy
inly takes you back by steps each time a little way, and to a
inite cause. To assert an origin is simply to break a chain of
lauses and effects without having any warrant for it, except to
over your own weakness. The argument falls with this ; you
annot demonstrate the infinity of Deity ; for, admitted a finite
ffect, how can you from it deduce an infinite cause? Thus the
omnipresence of Deity remains unproved. If the substance of
)eity cannot be demonstrated infinite, neither can his attributes ;
o that, so far as the proof goes, his wisdom and power may be
imited ; that is, there is no evidence that he is either omniscient
IT omnipotent. When our friend talks about having proved an
11- powerful, all-wise self-existence, he simply misrepresents
vhat he has tried to do, and he should not use a phrase which
loes not, and cannot bear the slightest reference to the aro^u-
oent. So far, then, we take exception to the speech which he
las given us to-night. By whatever means my friend has at-
ained his present conclusions, he must surely have gained the
lonvictions upon some better grounl than those which he has
jxpressed here to-night, unless, indeed, we are to suppose him to
lave changed without any reasoning at all. (Cheers.) I wish,
)efore concluding, to point out to you that in the position I
lave taken up I do not stand here to prove that there is no God.
[f I should undertake to prove such a proposition, I should de-
erve the ill words of the oft-quoted psalmist applied to those
^ho say there is no God. I do not say there is no God, but I
im an Atheist without God. To me the word God conveys no
dea, and it is because the word God, to me, never expressed a
jlear and definite conception — it is because I know not what it
neans — it is because I never had sufficient evidence to compel
ny acceptance of it, if I had I could not deny it — such evidence,
ndeed, I could not resist — it is for these reasons that I am
itheist, and ask people to believe me not hypocrite but honest,
when I tell them that the word *^ God " does not, to my
nind, express an eternal, infinite, omnipotent, intelligent, per-

10 i

Bonal, conscious being, but is a word without meaning and o
none effect, other than that it derives from the passions an(
prejudices of those who use it. And when I look round th(
world, and find in one country a church with one faith, in anothei
country, another creed, and in another a system contradictia^
each — no two men agreeing as to the meaning of the word — bu
cursing, clashing, quarrelling, and excommunicating on accoun
ot its meaning, relying on force of arms rather than on force o
reason — I am obliged to suppose that deficiency of argument haj
left them no other weapon with whicH to meet the power oi
reason. In this brief debate, it would be folly to pretend while
we may combat the opposite opinion we shall succeed in con
vincing each other ; but let me ask that to which ever side w€
may incline, we may use our intelligence as free from pre
judice as possible, so that we may better understand what
force of each other's reasonings. Let us agree, it we can, in the
clear and undoubted meaning expressed in the terms we use
There was a time when men bowed before the word God with*
out thought and withou*: inquiry. Centuries have gone by, and
the great men of eacli a^e have cast light on what was hitherto
dark. Philosophy has aided our intelligence, and stripped from
the name of God much of the force which it had previously held.
It is in the hope that this progress of human thought may be
more rapid and of higher use, and that, from out of debate, fresh
truths may be gained, that it may teach men to rely upon them-
selves, and so make their lives better the longer they live. It is
with this hope that I have taken the position of to-night.

Mr. Bradlaugh resumed his seat amidst general applause, and
some manifestations of dissent, which lasted for several seconds.

Mr. Cooper : I am very sorry to see all that — I am very sorry
to hear it. I do not want any man to clap his hands for me. I
came here to reason. I did not come here simply to meet Mr.
Bradlaugh. I wished to see appointed representative men. It
is to them and to you that I want to speak. I have nothing to
do with Mr. Bradlaugh's personal opinions. He says he is not
here to take the negative — to prove the non-existence of God. II
be reads the bill which I hold in my hand^ it will tell him that
Mr. C. Bradlaugh will take the negative. But he says he is not
here to take the negative — that he is not here to produce an
argument that there is no God. He knows nothing about God.
(Hear and cheers.) Now, what is the meaning of that cheer ?
(Cries of go on with your argument.) Now, I am afraid it is of no
use : you are not disposed to argue — to reason, but the argument
remains, notwithstanding — (cries of question.) This is the ques-
tion. I want you to be less excited. We &re here to form some
opinion as to the truth, and not to be crowing over each other.
Mr. Bradlaugh said that I said there was only one existence

11

Iways — I never said «o. Then, according to him, "he talked
about millions of existences y^ithout motion.** But I said with-
out motion such as matter has. I suppose the meaning of what
he said was, *• There may be many kinds of motion beside the
motion of matter.'* Then Mr. Bradlaugh said that I talked of
more than one existence being on one point. There may be a
thousand existences on one point for anything that I know. I
do not know why there cannot be only one existence on one point.
I did not say there could be only one existence on one point.
Expressions of the kind I never used. Then, he said, action
implies motion ; but what I said was, that God had no motion
Buch as matter. He was kind enough to tell us what existence
and non-existence were — what intelligence and non-intel-
ligence meant — but I thought we all knew the^e things pretty
well before. Then, he says, existence is a quality of a mode. Man,
jhe says, is finite ; he cannot perceive that existence can be infinite.
JThat is a kind of Spinoziisro. I wish he would tell me what he
^eans by " mode." He says that I said non-intelligence eould
form intelligence. I never used such a wor 1 — (cries of oh ! oh !)
1 never said anything so nonsensical — (loud cries of oh ! oh !) I
taid that non-ixjitelligence could not create — that it could not
originate. I never used the word form. Then again, " Analogy
iwas a good guide " — but he said no more about that, and then he
quoted Sir W. Hamilton to the effect, that cause was that with-
out which effect would not result. " There is no cause," he says,
** on which you can lay a finger, and not say that it is both cause
and effect," and he defies me to break the chain of causation-^
cause aiid effect I suppose he means. He next quotes from Samuel
Taylor Coleridge, a passage which says — there is an infinite chain
of finite things. Why, it is an utttr contradiction. Every man
has intelligence enough to perceive that, Wfiat we mean by
uncognised is that there is something unknown, uncognised if
you please. There can be no question about that. He com-
plains of the time being taken up with such words, and he goes
on to say — " My reason does not enable me to comprehend the
uncognised." Certainly it don't. More than that, I am very
sorry he cannot comprehend it. But there are many things which
we cannot comprehend. The light for instance. We cannot com-
prehend what it is to be everywhere present, but we apprehend
it. There are millions of things which we cannot comprehend,
but we can apprehend them. Then, he says, we talk about non-
inteiligence and intelligence, because he contends God does not
exercise any amount of ability. Among men, he says, God means
something that is traditional, and which has no reason to support
It. That has nothing to do with the question. Suppose, he says,
I had never seen the result of design — how could 1, by the help
9f le&soni arrive at it ? It cannot, he says, be. No cause, he sayti

12

can exist wihout causing a result. The result of design is part^
of our intelligence and experience. There is a modification of
existence only — it is not proved that everywhere existed. But
Mr. Bradlaugh knows that existence is being, and he knows, he
says, that, unless you can substantiate the assertion that it has
always existed, it does not show that he was all-wise. We reason
from this personal, conscious intelligence of man, to the fact that
God had created millions of conscious, intelligent beings — that he
was the author of all existence — that he was intelligent — we do
not reason from man's finite nature. We see in the manifestations
of his will the type of a higher will, of a nature that is supremacy.
The argument is untouched. Something has always existed, as
personal, conscious, intelligent beings exist — either intelligence or
non-intelligence must have produced them : but non-intelligence
cannot create, cannot originate. You might as well tell me that
there is no such thing as existence, as to try by sneers, and ask-
ing me what I mean by intelligence, to say that God does not
exist. I say that I exist — that the world exists — that God made
it. We have come here to establish this. We come here to
reason for the existence of God. It is of no use to say that there
was never nothing to make it out of. Our argument is mistaken.
Mr. Bradlaugh has not taken up the argument. The bill is
before me in which he is stated to take the negative, but he
has not taken the negative ; he simply says he knows not whether
there is a God or not. (Cheers.)

Mb. Bradlaugh : We want the argument for the existence of
Grod ! He (Mr, Cooper) is quite right. We do want it. We
have not had it yet. He says I am bound to prove a negative,
and relies on the wording of the bill. This is hardly fair. The bill
is Mr. Cooper's own framing, unaltered by me. I only tried to
have one word different, and that was refused.

Mr. Cooper : You should not want to hide your narce.

[Some disorder occurred at this point of the debate, when]—

The Chairman interposed and said : I beg that no reference ;
may be macie to anything which might lead to any wrong feeling,

Mr. Bradlaugh : My friend, if he wishes the argument ad- |
hered to, should have himself made no reference to matters which
were altogether beside it. Let him remember what is the
subject chosen for discussion, and adhere to that alone. He says
that, according to the bill, I am to take the negative side. It
has been my lot in life to be present at the trial of many issues, but I
never heard that the defendant had more to do than rebut the
case sought to be made against him. I will take, as example, an
instance, such as when a man had stolen any article, or committed
some act for which he might incur penalties. It was the duty of
the counsel employed in such a case simply to negative the
evidence which was brought to support the case. The aims pro^

13

bandi to-night lies with my friend, and the only task that lies
upon me here is to show that he has not succeeded in performiog
the duty which he came here to perform. He has dechned to
explain certain terms used by him, on the ground that ever^ body
knew them. Surely he might have enlightened my ignorance ;
and, at any rate, he had no right to assurae that everybody un-
derstood them after my declaration to the contrary. He has used
words on the construction of which the whole argument depends,
and he has failed to explain to us the meaning he intended to ex-
press. He might have enlightened my ignorance as to the mean-
ing of words he used; but, instead of that, he has called on me
by way of retort to explain some words used by myself. Now,
by "mode," I mean a phase of couditioned existence. This glass is
bne mode of existence, and the water, which I have poured out of
It, is another mode of existence. ** Quality'* is an attribute or
characteristic. It is some characteristic, or number of charac-
teristics, which enables or enable me to distinguish one mode
from another. If he wishes any better explanation that it is
possible to give, I shall be happy to supply him with it. When
he was asked for explanations, he said it was sufficient that he
had said it. Now if non-intelligence cannot create intelligence,
bow do you come to the conclusion that intelligence can create
non-intelligence ? Why is one less possible than the other, or
why is one less reasonable than the other ? If intelligence be
everywhere, then non-intelligence — where is that ? In this kind
of argument, by asserting without warranty that intelligence is
everywhere, and non-intelligence somewhere, you contradict your-
self. Then, my friend says, "create" is a word everybody under-
stands. He confesses that he did not understand me in quoting
from Hamilton, or when I urged that creation and destruction
were alike impossible. Now we are utterly unable to ccmstrue it
in thought as possible, that the complement of existence has
either been increased or diminished — we cannot conceive no-
thing becomins: something, or something becoming nothing.
!The words creation and destruction are, to me, without mean-
ing. When our friend uses these words, he should not pre-
sume that the majority of the audience comprehend the
meaning he wished to put upon them, or still less that they
apprehended it. He says he does not come to speak to me but to
you ; but, for such as have elected me to appear on their
behalf, I ask for those definitions. But Mr. Cooper says he
never did assert that there was only one existence always. Well,
then, does he mean that his argument admitted the possibility of
two existences occupying the same space ? And if one be every-
where, where can the other be ? Qh ! says my friend, there may
be a thousand existences of different natures on one point, though,
if one be all-powerful, it is hard to imagine it exercising power

14

over other existences having nothing of common nature, and'i*^11
with which it can have no relativity. Will he tell me how thi{ ^^*=f
can be ? He puts the matter thus to you, and he is bound tcl ^^^
give you some explanation of it. He says, with regard td ^P''
motion, that he did not say that one existence had no motion. ]i elf'g
must trouble him, when he rises again, to tell me what he meangi ^i^l
by motion, for I really do not know. I thought I had some! P
notion of it when he began his speech, bat now I think he has no' ^*'
meaning for it. I am bound to concede to him that the words) 'f^^'
represent in his mind some ideas he intends to express ; but! 'i'^l'
when I question him on the words he uses, they represent simply; ^'"*
contusion of thought. When I ask him the meaning of uncaused! '^^
cause, he says he cannot comprehend it, but can apprehend it iikel ^'1
light and lifie ; and he asserted that you can no more comprehendi ^^^
light and life that you can uncaused cause. If he wished to J o"^'
choose illustrations destructive of his own argument, he couldJ 4
not have adduced one better adapted to that purpose. He saya^ ^^,
that I cavil with words, but the argument is made up of words. '§''
If you knock all these words to pieces, where does the argument P'
lie ? If there be your uncaused cause at all, according to you it IP"
is substance, which substance I define as being that existence^ *5
which we can conceive per se^ and the conception of which does! '"'
not involve the conception of any thing else as antecedent to it.) H
Life may be <^t fined as organic functional activity. You cannot ^ "
give any definition of uncaused cause — you might as well say aj g'
pquare triangle, or a triangular circumference, or sweet number i '^
three. Now, I am placed in this difficulty, that Mr. Cooper,
not prepared to prove his position, calls on me to take up the !
attack. We want, he says, the demonstration of God*8 non- exist- I
ence. There is always a great difficulty in trying to do too
much ; but I will endeavour to do what is possible — i.e., to demon- ^
strate to you that there is no such being as the God my friend
argues for — namely, a God everywhere, whose existence being in-
finite, precludes the possibility of conceiving any other existence,
but in proof of whom is involved the conception of another
existence created in addition to everything, and which exists
somewhere beyond everywhere — a God who, being infinitely
intelligent, precludes the possibility ot conceiving existence with-
out intelligence, and yet beside whose infinite intelligence, non-
mtelligent substance exists. Nothing is easier than to prove the
negative of this, if that is what my friend means. I will endea-
vour, for a moment, to do so. I may be ineffective. Our friend
eay« that God is all-powerful and all-wise. Now either intelli-
gfci^^e manifests power and wisdom, or it does not. My friend
says that it does, because he seeks tu demonstrate power and
wisdom from the intelligence he discovers in existence. Surely
if it be assumed that intelligence la evidence of power and

y

15

[»dom, the lack of or absence of intelligence must be evidence

dexiciency ot power and wisdom. My friend says there is non-

telligence, and I say that non-intelligence demonstrates want

power and want of wisdom in creating substance without in-

ligence. Intelligence is either good or bad. Our friend says

is good because it helps him to make out God's attribute of all

odness. If it is good, then the absence of intelligence must be

e reverse; and if non- intelligence is bad, it must be that the

•eator either had not the will or desire to make existence infi-

tely intelligent. My friend says that there is non-mtelligent

istence, and he says that God had all -power and all-knowledge.

)d must, therefore, have been without the desire, in which case

would not be all-good. Our friend says I have misquoted

leridge. Coleridge says, without discontinuity, there can be

origination, and my argument is that you are lost in the con-

nplation ot the chain of causes and effects, and that you can have

conception of creation or of origination, and, therefore, must

without the conception of God. (Cheers )

Mb. Cooper : Mr. Biadlaugh has told us that it has been his

in life to be at the trial of many issues. Now we are not

^yers, and cmnot say how far this experience may serve the

yument. My friend said there was one word which he had tried

get in the bill. He should never put on a great hat, and put

a great name if he did not earn it. I never called myself by

^reat name ia my life. If I have had a name, I was content

receive it from others. I never called myself either Icono-

st or I fiddlestick — (Cries of order, oh ! oh ! and cheers.)

ell, if you do not like this, you sh(;uld not have encouraged it.

i says I should have enlightened his ignorance. I have often

)oped to enlighten him. When he wns only a boy here of

;hteen years old, I had marked out his course. He asks how

come to the conclusion that non-intelligence does not create.

lid not think that Charles Bradlaugh would have asked aques-

n of that kind, I thought he had more sense. I did not sup-

se that any one in this assembly — any man of common-sense,

d need to ask such question. I saicW should teach him. I am

ing my best to teach him. " Everybody cannot judge well the

ison why he contrives." But I should have thought that all

sonable men would have seen t^at clearly enough. They

ve personal intelligence. But, then, he says non-intelli'Tence

qihilates intelligence which is everywhere. That is not so.

says also that creation is a word without any meaning for

n. It means, however, an act of God — of the great existence.

t he wants definitions; and, again, he says since there has been

%t intelligence existing everywhere, there must have been two

atences occupying the same space. I never indicated such an

jument in the slightest way. I simply spoke of all other

16

existences being moved, separate from, and derived. I have n
spoken those words that have been imputed to me. I nevlu
said such words. He wants to know what is the motion '
matter. He cannot conceive what matter is and what is motio
But why has he been talking about motion if he does not understaij|^.j
it ? He has given us his ideas of motion. He fails to percei; L
what IS matter, and what is meant by the motion of matte
But there is matter enough in this room — there is matter enoua
before us. If he does not understand what is meant, I go furthi ■!
and ask what it is ? I am to understand by a definition whic
he has given of life, that it is organic functional activity, fi
has explained to me that this was life. He said the remark ihi 1
it was uncognised cause, could not be apprehended. Will 1:
define what he means by organic functional activity? He
not bound to believe me, but if he does not give some more pre
cise explanation, it simply comes to nothing. He has not con ^Jj
to any conclusion. He says there cannot be an uncognised cause ^
that it is as unmeaning as a triangular square, or a triangu^ J,.
circumference, or sweet number three. He has mentioned Sj 1
William Hamilton and others. I should have relied upoj j|j
such men as Butler, Sir Isaac Newton, L eke, Samui
Clarke. When these great men spoke, I should ha\
thought it might be admitted that it would do. Oh! n(
This was certainly a modest way of talking. Well, it was th
wrong way. It is the wrong sort of modesty. He says I hay
endeavoured to prove the possibility of any other existence
have not. I have proved that something also is in existence — thi
it must be intelligent, and must exist in part everywhere. Sto|j
Take the argument — take hold of it — take it to pieces. It con
vinces my own mind. It has passed through my mind fully an
clearly. I said that God was all-powerful and wise. I do nc
want to misrepresent, but I want to tell you what Mr. Bradlaug
did say, and my reply to it. He says that either there
everywhere intelligence, or that there is somewhere where ther
is no intelligence. He says that non-intelligence cannot creat
intelligence. He says that in some part of everywhere, there
non-intelligence. Because I had said that non-intelligence existi
he denies that God exists everywhere intelligent. But
"^ust be intelligent, because he created all the intelligenci
tbat exists — because He created every derived intel):'
gence. Now, with regard to the moral argument of God
goodness, we have nothing to do with that to-night. If we com
to that, it must be on Wednesday. Then his goodness as a nior
governor of the universe comes into question. Now, I did nci
say that Mr. Bradlaugh had misquoted Coleridge. What I sai
was, that Coleridge never taught me that an infinite chain c
finite intelligences could have existed. I say that Samuel Taylo

K

i

17

eridge never maintained any such thing in his life. Coleridge
a great believer in God. (Hear and laughter.) No sneer or
hter, I assure you, disturbs me. I exist ; and I have not al-
^s existed. Something has always existed. I am conscious
in intelligent existence. If it began to be, it was caused to be
'some other existence, and must have been so caused. If any
son can persuade himself that non-intelligence can cause
5tence, intelligent, personal, conscious existence, let him show
that he believes, and that he maintains such a doctrine. I
i go no further at present — there are just these steps in the
uraeut. Here is the argument, and if our friend does not give
the argument for the non-existence of God — that is, the nega-
of the question — I have shown that I exist, and that, havinsc
un to exist, something must have existed before me. I am
blligent, personal, conscious, and so the something which al-
fs has existed was personal, conscious, intelligent. It has
ays been or began to be. If it began to be, it has cause, and
cause must be either intelligent or non-intelligent. I say
t non-intelligence cannot be an intelligent creator, an origina-
has no reason, will, judgment, can't contrive, cannot be a cause,
erefore, I know that my existence, that personal, conscious, in-
igent existence proceeds from that uncaused, underived, un-
ited .intelligence, whom all men reverence and I call God. I
bt that disproved. (Applause.)

^R. Bradlaugh : Were the Danes and the Germanic forces
' either bank of the river Eider to turn their backs to each
er and fire, they would stand in about the same relation as
'\ Cooper and myself. He will not give definitions, and he
kches different meanings to the words he uses to those which
*ttach to them. How are we, therefore, to arrive at any con-
'sioa that will be instruetive or useful ? He says that he has
fen been able to teach me, and if this is so, he should not
i^e relinquished the office of teacher to-night ; but I confess that
ie has taught me, it has been at the greatest possible distance
'ween himself and myself. The opportunities have certainly
^n often sought by myself for instruction at Mr. Cooper's
lads, but I have only been favoured once or twice. My friend
^es that he does not put himself forward under a name he has
t won, and though these topics have but little to do with
night's debate, I can say that I have fairly won the right to
^ my nom de guerre Iconoclast. I have won fame for it with
ficulty, and maintained my right to use it despite many a pang.
y opponent, though but one consequence can arise from his
{)ulation, has compelled me to print my name — that consequence
an increased difficulty in my business life. But for this I
not care. Though, unfortunately, placed in this disadvantage,
)riut my name and answer for myself, although I am really

IS

surprised tliat a man with the love of God aud strenajth of t;
with ability, with learuing all upon his side, cannot allow
my poor folly, if folly it be, and bear with me and my noji
plume. He says, " I will not give definitions." I say, in re
you cannot — that you do not know the force and relevance of
words you use, and you simply don't tell us bt^cause you do i leni
know. I tell you in the clearest manner that, from your ||iit
speech, you have no notion of the accurate meanings of
words you used — you talk about " other and separate,
derived," and seem not to know that the words are coniradicto'
Derived existence mu^^t be relative, cannot be separate in s
stance. At least a teacher in using philosophic langua^re
scholar ought to have put it more clearly. Let us see. He
there is one existence, infinite, intelligent. He {-ays everybl
knows that it is more possible for intelligence to create ni
intelligence, than for uon-intelligrence to create iatelligence. I
this has no meaning. 1 (itti.icii mteiiigeocii as a quality
mode of existence, aiid canaot undastaud quality creating a
stance. He has not told us wliat was meant by uncaused ca
and if he will not take intelligence to be a quality of a mode
existence, be has not told us what it is. He says there is in
ligcnt existence now, theretore its cause is iutelligent.
might as well tell us for our information that this glass is h
and, therefore, its cause must be a hard existence, and then
might as fairly say that because that glass is hard, its causi
eternal hardness. There is no relevance whatever between ar;
ments founded on phenomena and the noumenon which it
sought to demonstrate. It is no use my friend denying th
trutti of any one definition, unless he is prepared to give us
better, so that you can compare the one with the other if you please J)
Our friend says that intelligence can create non-intelligence, bull
this involves a contradiction of the most striking character. Fo'p
if intelligence is infinite, non-intelligence is impossible, and fo ?
infinite intelligence to create non-intelligence is for it to anuihi i
late itself. My friend appeals to everybody's knowledge, but thic
whole force of his appeal lies in his confusion of existence and it;l
qualities. Intelligence is a quality of a mode — mode is neither in-?
finite nor eternal, and the attribute cannot be jrreater than thd
mode it pertains to. You can hav« no knowledge of existencfi
other than by mode, and can have no knowledge whatever oH
different existences of which one is all- powerful, all-wise, aD(i
everywhere present ; and the other is, or others are, somewhere
where this one is not. My friend calls on me to prove that d"
lerent kinds of existence do not exist at the same time upon t
same point. I think it is for the man who talks about th
existences, and not lor me, to show what he means, ^y creat
Air. Cooper says he meaua an act of G)d ; if this is what " create'

19

T13, and if he explnms it to you in such term^. ♦li^^n is every act

Tod a creatioD ? Our friend surely won't say that, and if he

,ns some one particular act of God, he must enable mo to

itify it. I am not dealing with the moral argument as to God

Tovernor, but if the argument on design as manifesting intel-

nce is relevant, so far it strikes at the want of power,

it of wisdom of God. Is it not an illustration of the poverty

ny friend's logic, and the weak efforts that are made to sus-

I a weak case, when an argument is attempted to be conveyed

juch terms as I fiddlestick (cheers), although a pretty tune

ht be played on it ? He says he does not know what I

n by organic functional activity, and asks me to explain.

II, suppose I could not tell, that would not explain what is an

aused cause, I will, however, try to show that I have not

jn an improper definition of life. By organic functional activity,

ean the totality of activity resulting from or found with the

:tionsof each organism. My friend comprehends that which I

I organism in the vegetable and animal kingdom. If he tells

that he does not know what I mean by organism, I can

' refer him by way of illustration to the organism of a tree or

man ; and by organism I mean the totality of parts of such

or man. It is possible that a better versed man than my-

might make this more clear ; but it is not for my friend to

ter himself under my want of knowledge, and to say he will

give definitions while he requires them Irom me. Well,

says, " I exist ; something has existed. It has not existed

ays. It has been originated.'* I take exception to the word.

0 not understand the word origin in reference to existence.

says he will not define it. I do not know whether he means

prigination coming into existence where it was before. If so,

2II him that the conception of this is impossible, that the ap-

hension of it is impossible, that he has used a form of words

:ich convey nothing of meaning either to you or to me. But

en we tell him that we do not understand an uncaused

se, he says he don't understand a scholar without modesty,

11, then, Locke understood it, he says, and a great many other

it names understood it. Will he tell us how they understood it ?

ely I have a right to ask him how they apprehended it. He

i the phrase, and I have surely a right to assume the onus of

of to be with him. When he does not or will not give us a

nition, I believe it is because he cannot. If he has a great

n to teach, I cannot suppose that he would be guilty of the

of withholding from you all the information that he had, or

Id obtain ; but I am bound to suppose it is from his utter

ility to give you any, that he is wholly unprepared, either

facts or arguments. If intelligence be a quality of mode,

in so putting it you have entirely overridden the question of

20

intelligence as existence, or as infinite attribute of existence. It
is for my friend to make clear his position to you. Iknoil'^'^l^
that to many of you it may seem mere word play, but it is won* '^^
play which strikes at the root of the question. What does hi'^^P
mean, when he says there may be a thousand existences besid ' '^*'
God ? Does he mean that there may be a thousand existencff^/'
scattered and separate ? What does separate mean ? It means cle
from, and distinct, and having no link in common with. If the
are a thousand such existences separate, then God is not infinit
and if not, our friend's argument comes to nothing. I find
difficult to see how ray friend can understand that he has prov
his case. I find it more difficult still to conceive how holding
one period other opinions, he could have been carried away fro
those other opinions by such arguments as these. Surely we ha
a right to ask him to make this matter as clear to us as it is
himself. The argument which convinced him, should convin
us, each individual here. God is personal ? What does this wo
personal mean in relation to the infinite ? God conscious ? Co
scions of what ? Has he an immutable consciousness? Was
always conscious of the existence of the universe ? — that is, di
he know it to exist before it was created, or has his consciousnesi
been modified by the creation ? Was God conscious of tb
material universe when it yet was not ? If yes, how could h
know a thing to be which was not yet in being ? If God's con
sciousness was once without the fact of the universe, and if God
consciousness is capable of change, w^hat becomes of the immu
lability of God ? Tell me how it was supplemented since ; tell mf'p
how something has been added since? You dexterously pla^
"with terms which you cannot explain, and hope to affirm by asseri
tion what you cannot demonstrate by argument. (Cheers.)

Mr, Cooper: I have a note about teaching Mr. Bradlaugh. Wei
I am teaching him now, I cannot help it. He d d not care ! Wei
a quee^ word tba:: for young lads. I do not wonder that he
unfortunate. Most people are unfortunate who do not care. He
unfortunate, now wh^re is the worst misfortune, I cannot sa
One does not like to talk about these things. Well, he wants t
know why he should be compelled to believe in God, and wh
his little folly shoul i not be granted to him ? Well, he wil fin
that out some day (cheers and hisses), he must expect it (renewe
expressions of dissent) ; now do not get into a bad temper ; h
complains that he cannot demonstrate, that I do not knt)W th
use of the terms I use. Then he says derived from, and separa
cause. Really, I thought I saw a great many per-,ons sepa-
rate from one another before me, and we separate from them. I
cannot understand this curious kind of definition. I cannotd'
Then again, intelligence is a quality of personal, cousciousw
existence. Well, 1 spoke of it so. You may call it an attribute,f

21

use fchp word how you please. Why did I say that God could

iate ? Becau^»e his will must be all powerful. I was talking of

r intelligence, of our will. We have iutellio;ence. I talked about

e power of man's will as a part of his personal, conscious, and

el lig^nt existence. It is therefore a power in G d, and must

uncontrollable. That power, therefore, must be all powerful.

lave not confused the qanlity of existence. I never did. But

ivant Mr. Bradlaugh to answer the arguments adduced. The

estion, he says, is an attribute or mode, and not of existence,

hat is the meaning of that ? I said it was not an argurae:::t for

-niizht. For the moral argument, the right time will be W'ednes-

y night. I said we must not bring ic on to-night. I said it is

ipossible for a thing to come into exis ence when it was not

ifore. Has he not come into existence, and have not millions of

lople come into existence where they were not be ore ? Now, I

> not know what you mean by this : — ** Is it reasonable to sup-

>se something separate over which no power can be exercised ?

iMt glass is separate from me, aad yet lean exercise power over

(Cries of prove it, cheers and dissent). I wish you would rea-

n and would not clap your hands. If j'ou do, I can only say

is sheer nonsense. What does personal, eternal, infinite con-

i usness mean ? Has God's consciousness ever changed ? All

ings are present to his mind, and always must have been

esent to him from his very nature. But I must ask my friend

lat life is. He has not made me to comprehend what life is,

though he defines it as organic functional activity. There is no

an can comprehend life. What is man's life ? What is angel life ?

-it is in vain to tell me about organic functional activity — what is

getable life ? And now, since you twit me with absence of

iration where it was never before, am I to understand that in-

llligence is a quality of mode, and not a quali y of substance, or

lat separate means something over which no power can

,i exercised ? Where is the sense of it ? How am I to understand

;? I believe now I have mentioned evrry thing of importance.

Mr. Bradlaugh : My friend's last question is, where was the

nse of it ? If it applies to his own speech, I will tell him nowhere —

; really displayed none from beginning to end. Our friend must

|ave ability to know the difference between unconditioned exist-

pce and modal existence ; or if he has not the ability he

not justified in championing the cause for which he is argu-

g. What he argues for, is not conditioned existence, but for

fod, the absolute. If he does know for what he is arguing, or

^lows and will not explain — or if he has not the ability to define

y terms, he should not have come here to teach you. In other

jords, he should not, if wise, pretend to an ignorance which sets

pfore us incoherent statements like those he has made in lieu of

^e proof he was bound to furnish. I will show yju presently

22

how little be was able to take the part as affirming the being of God
as maker of the universe ; and how much he attempts to conceal
in taking that part. He says that God is immutable, and all
things are now present to him, and ever have been present to
him. He says this must have been according to God's very
nature, but he did not trouble us with a word of reason for this
startling statement. His affirmation is, that God was as equally
conscious of the universe before the creation, as after. But to.
say there was a time when the material universe did not exist, r
and yet that at that time God was conscious of its existence — is |
absurd, and an utter contradiction. How could God be conscious '
that the universe was when it was not ? The phrase is so ludicrously
self-contradictory, that my friend could not have thought at all
when he uUered it. If God were at any time without conscious-
n-*ss of the material universe, and afterwards became conscious
of the new fact of the origination or creation of the universe,
then there was a change in God's consciousness, which could
not be immutable, as my frierid contends. It would be supple-
mented by the new fact. I cannot understand what he means
when he talks of the immutability of God's consciousness being
a necessity of his nature. Surely such a word as nature implies
the very reverse of immutability. Aud if not, I should be glad
to know in what meaning my friend used a word which in com-
mon acceptation implies constant mutation. In dealing with
the question of separate existence, Mr. Cooper says, that you and
I are separate from each other. We are separate modes of the
same existence, but are not separate existences. Does he mean
that the universe is separate from God in the same way that we
are from each other ? If not, this is a subterfuge. He does not
seem to know himself where the sense of his argument lies.
Then he says, ** I am separate from this glass, but I can exer-
c se power over it." Here is the illustration of mode— of mode,
in whicii there is common substance, common existence, but it
is not an illustration having any analogy. It is only because
he will not think that there is a diffierence between relative and
absolute terms, or see that we are each using words in opposite
senses. This discussion is degenerating into talk on one side, and
repetition on the other. He says again he is an existence, I say
be is a mode of existence. I have already defined existence as
identical with that substance, which is that which exists per se^
and the conception of which does not involve the conception of
any other existence as antecedent to it. Mr. Cooper has not dis-
puted this definition. He claims for God such existence, and yet
says he himself is an existence. If he means that he is a separate
existence from God — if he says that he is separate and exists
per se, then I do not, I repeat, undtrstand his meaning. I want
an explanation from him. He cannot exist per se, for he says

23

tbat he did not always exist. He cannot urge that he came
into existence from himself, or he would argue that he existed,
and did not exist at the same time. His existence can only be
conceived relatively as a mode of existence, such existence
being in truth before its mode, and existing after tbis mode shall
have ceased. He is not existence, but only a condition of exist-
ence, having particular attributes by which he is distinguished
from otber conditions of the same existence. He says that it is
nonsense when two men stand on the same platform to discuss an
important matter, and use the same words in a different sense.
It IS undoubtedly nonsense, when one of the disputants passes
over all the detinitions of the words without disputinjj them, or
supplying others. Does he mean to say that he admits the defioi-
tions I have given ? If he does, the way he speaks of them clearly
shows that his arguments are based on, and prove only modes of
existence, and do not prove existence absolute, so that he has
admitted the whole point for which I am contending (cheers).
He says sep ^rate existences can exercise power over each other.
I ask him to show me how, because I have told him it is im-
possible to think of two existences distinct and independent of each
other— that it is equally impossible to conceive that two sub-
stances having nothing in common, can be the cause of or affect
one another. He says then that man's will has furnished him
with the basis for arguing for God's power. He reasons up to ihe
will of God from the will of man. But if man's will be, as I
declare it to be, the result of causes compelling that will, -and
if God's will is to be fairly taken as analogical to man's will, then
God's will also results from f?ause8 compelling his will. But in
this case, the compelling cause must be more powerful than God,
and thus the supremacy of God's power is destroyed (cheers).
I know that in this it is possible I may be arguing beside
the question, because our friend does not take reasonable pains
to make any explanation as to the value which he attaches to
the meaning of his words. Let us see how his demonstration
breaks down: — God's will and consciousness are identified by
my Iriend. God's consciousness, according to him, has never
changed, and never can change. God belore creation mu«t have
been conscious that he intended to create, but if his conscious-
ness has never changed, he must have been always intending to
create, and the creation could never have commenced. Or, (jod
must have been always conscious that he had created, in which
case there never could have been a period when he had yet to
create. He must either at some time hav3 been conscious that
the material universe did not exist, or he must have been con-
scious that it always existed. In the last case, there could be no
creation ; and in the first, if God's conyciousuess were unchanged,
the universe would not yet exist to him. I am not responsible

24

for the peculiar absurdity of this sentence. God eit'^^er always
willed to make, or he never willed to make. But he could not
have always willed to make, because otherwise there would have
been some time in existence preceding the act of making, which
there could not have been, becau'ie God »s im^TiUt.j'n e, and eoi^ld
not have changed — there could never have been making without
change — without change there never was intention preceding act,
nor act preceding intention, and there could never have been
manifested that power which he argues for as demonstrating
Deity. I appeal to the audience to think for themselves, and I ask
them whether our friend has adduced any reasonable evidence for
God as the maker and creator of the universe ? I ask whether
he has not put before you an unintelligible jumble of words
without any relation to the question ? I ask you whether he can
fairly be regarded as presentir g the united intellect of that
muster-roll of names which he has given as arguing from design
in favour of Deity. How can he claim to be a teacher, who
cannot explain words he uses, or does not know the meaning of
the words his opponent uses ? I simply claim to be a student*
I admit I have not that confidence in myself that enables Mr.
Cooper to regard himself as impregnably entrenched and en-
camped, so secure that nobody can touch him. When one sends
a stone through the window of his argument, he says it is not
broken, and when the doors are battered down he declares that
they still stand. I admit so far he is better off than I am. If
he can convince you, and if that conviction be worth anything,
I can only ask when he taunts me about the trial of issue, whether
this is not the most momentous issue that man can have to try ? I
ask not as a lawyer, but as a man. He must meet the question
fairly and honestly, and without a taunt, or before I have done
he will have full payment for all the taunts he gives. (Loud
cheers.)

Mr Cooper : When Mr. Bradlaugh says that the doors have
been battered down, and a stone sent through the window — I
say I never said a word about doors or windows. When he says
I will not teach — I say he will not learn. (Cheers and confusion.)
When he says I wish he would not fling such big words at me
— I say his words are so big they split my ears, as they make
such a terrible noise. (Cheers and hisses.) I hardly know what
he was saying when he was talking — (loud cries of question ;
Now we are all to the question. (Laughter and oh ! oh I) Who
is that silly man that says question? You should havtj
brought your brains in here, and not come without them. (Hisses
and confusion.) Mr. Bradlaugh says I ought to know there is a
difference in condition. That is what I argue for. He says I
have not the ability to discern it, and, therefore, should not hav?
come here. He says I know it all or 1 conceal it. I have nevei

25

been in the habit of concealing things in my life. "All," he
repeats, " is prtsent to the mind of God, that is his conscious-
ness." I said it was present to his mind because he is always.
If my friend tries to show that it is not, let him show it. Pre-
sent to his consciousness ! He asks — How can it be present to his
consciousness when it has not existeci — how can anything be
present to my conscience that has passed away from existence?
There is memory, and he knows that must exist to all eternity—
that is how it is present to his consciousness, so that his immut*
ability and his consciousness are essential, he bein<r perfectly wise.
Show me how that can be, says Mr. Bradlaugh. We are separate
modes of the same existence ; that glass is a mode of existence.
What is separate ? — the mode ? A jumble of words — indeed, I call
this gibberish. What is this gibberish that tells us that intel-
ligence is a mode, or rather a quality of existence ? Show what
is mode ? How are we the same existence as that fflass ? Please
to enlighten me. He talks of those listening to mere talk from
me. I really do not know what he is talking about sometimes,
'i hen he says it is ncnsense for two men on the same platform to
use two words in a different sense. Why there is no debate if
we can agree. I don't want to use words in the sense that myself
and a glass are the same substance. If there are two exiatence^^,
one acting on the other, you say it is an affirmation and was not
proved. Well, but it did not follow, he says, that God was al-
ways creating because his conscience was immutable. " It don't
show that he should do anything ; acts of will are not tied to the
proof of his consciousness; that can be consciousness something
else, not will, that may be done." Why that is playing with
words. Then, again, he says bt^cause conscience is immutable
— make affirmation that his will is iramutiible. Now I want
my argument answered. (Cheers and hisses.) He asks what we
mean. Why, if he cannot bring forward a better argument than
he has afforded us to-night, he cannot argue it. I exist ; but
something must have always existed. I am a personal, conscious,
intelligent existence. You know what it is, or you could not
ask such a question. You did so for a puzzle, perhaps. It is
an act of intelligence to ask the question. Oh ! but I am asked
to define what intelligence is, and when I define it, then to define
the definition. Organic functional activity, he repeats. I have
no explanation of it. Did you dt^fine that definition ? (Cries of
yes, yej?, and no, no.) Well, you know there is a personal, con-
sciou>» intelligence — either there was always existence, or it began
to exist. Then whatever has come into existence must have a
cause. Non-intelligence can't create intelligence. Conceive it, if
you can. That which can't be needs no proof. Just as if one could
perceive than a thing can't be, and yet it necessarily exists. So
non-intelligence cannot create mtell gence. ** Our friend has not

26

shown that it can.'' He says he does not know the meaning of
the word create. "He has not shown what he means," Mr.
Bradlaugh says, " by personal, conscious, intelligent existence."
That it has always been, that it is derived from some personal,
conscious, intelligent always existent being. Well, I mean that,
if you like. (Cheers.)

Mr. Bradlaugh; My friend, in conclusion, said I had not
shown that non-intelligence could create intelligence. Consider-
ing that I have repeatedlv declared that I do not know the mean-
ing of the word create, I think my friend must be rather san-
guine to suppose that I would undertake to enlighten him upon
this point. It does not lie upon me* to prove that non-intelligence
can create intelligence, but on my friend, who affirmed a con-
tradiction in terms, to prove it. This statement of my disincli-
natioa does not help his inability. If I am lame, it don't prove
that he can walk without crutches. But Mr. Cooper says that
in representing to you God's consciousness as immutable, I do
injustice to his views ; that, although all things are perpetually
present to God*s consciousness — God need not, and does Uv^, he
says, always will to create. But surely such a declaration is
entirely without evidence, and nowi-e improves Mr. Cooper's
position. If there was any period when God did not will to
create, then he must have changed when he varied his wdl to the
act of creating. But I want to know how a thing can be present
when it is non-existent ? If all things were always present to
God, all things must have always existed. To God there never
could be a time when they did not exist. There never was to
him a time when it was necessary to create — iie could not have
created that which to him had ever existed. He said, he did not
understand what I meant, when I taiked of intelligence being
quality of mode. He said it is a quality of existence, a quality
of substance, and therefore God, who created subst:mce, must be
intelligent, his intelligence was a quality of all existence. Not
all, for he says there are some existences, or some parts of sub-
stance that are not intelligent. Then intelligence is a quality of
existence, and it is not ! Because existence, according to Mr. Cooper,
may be, and is with it and without it. Now, I say that intelli-
gence being a quality of mode of existence, that in various modes
we find varying qualities. All intelligence is not of the same
degree, but varies as the modes differ. They differ as by their
Various characteristics. It is by difference of quality that you
distinguish the one mode from the other. If intelligence be infi-
niie, there can be unly one kind of it, and of one degree ; it can
never be lesser or greater. But intelligence varies accordir*;
tv mole. You find diSerent degrees '^t iitelii^ence nL'R le^' *^
diff'erent organisations. (Hear, hear). It must therefore be, if
Mr. Cooper's logic be worth anything, that one kind of intelli-

27

gence creates like ; then, seeing that no two men are alike
organised or intelligent, there must be as many different Gods to
create as there are different intelligences. I am driven to this
line of argument by the absurdity of my friend's speeches. I can-
not believe but that he must know better ; if he does not. little
indeed can he have read the elaborate essays of modern
thinkers — little can he have examined the terms used by great men
from whom he professes to quote. Little iudeed can he have
read either the volumes of Hamilton or Berkeley, or of the men
whose ideas be professes to put before us. Surely the philoso-
phy of the unconditioned has formed, at some time or other, a
reading lesson for my friend. He declares that he has the ability of
teaching one so ignorant as he believes myself t'> be ; but
when he uses words so irrelevant and so void of meaning, I am
obliged to assume that he uses them ignorantly, or he would be
more heedful of giving their meaning. He s iys that the glass
and himself are different existences : he cannot understand their
being different modes of the same substance. His understand-
ing must be sadly deficient, if he cannot distinguish between
the characteristics of this mode and that one and that each
mode has more or less different qualities with the same substance.
Here, then, in each quality my friend will have something by
which he can in thought separate modes, but he cannot in
thought give a separate existence to the substance of each mode,
because he well knows that the same substance as this glass, in
another mode, might have cfone to form an intelligent being at
some period of existence. If he says he does not know what he
means by his own words, then, by obtuseness of intellect
he is incapacitated as a public teacher, or it is evident he
dare not use the plain meanings of technical language, because
he is afraid of its logical consequences. Then he says that God,
who is everywhere present, yet besides whom there is somewhere
where he is not — that he has a consciousness of existence
passed away. I deny that there ever was existence which
has since passed away. I take a firm stand on this, and I sub-
mit that the two phrases, '* creation," and ** existence or substance
passed away," are utterly without meaning. Our friend, surely
if he meant anything, cannot have meant existence that had
ceased to be — that something could never become nothing, yet he
ialks of existence passed away — he speaks of existence as no longer
existmg. If he means that God's range of observation is limited,
and that it did not come within his range of observation, then I
can understand it ; but if he means this, then he abandons the
attribute of omniscience for Deity. It is difficult really to
guess what interpretation he wishes to be put upon his words.
If there is anything which does not exist always to God, it can
never have existed, as my friend denies the possibility of any thing

28

bee ming n th*Dg. Therefore, to speak of anything which has
pas.std out ot existence, is to use words without sense or relevance.
(Laughter and cheers.) Our friend says that he did not know
that the window was knocked out and the portal carried away. I
am afraid he is the only one in this room in so blissful a state of
ignorance. He complains of my loud voice. I am always desirous
to limit my voice to the place in which I speak, and not to give
offence. But I am apt to remember my subject rather than my
voice. I am apt to remember alone the cause iu which I am
speaking rather than the manner of speech. I know that there
is much in my address capable of improvement ; and if my friend
wishes to reprove me, let it be by the contrast between us. His
better chosen phraseology, courteous and patient demeanour, quiet
and kindly bearing, will, coupled with his calmneas while I
am replying, be more effective than any verbal rebuke. (Loud
cheers.)

It was now a quarter to ten, Mr. Cooper begged to be informed
by the chairman as to a point of order. He said that, in his discus-
sion with Joe Barker, the order was that the person who opened
the discussion for the night closed it.

The ChaiBman, in reply, said : — I think that the best way is
to adopt a rule. I understand from the paper, the order of
speaking is to be alternate speeches of a quarter of an hour each. I
think it best that the person opening should not speak last. There
will be two more speeches. Mr. Cooper will speak for a quarter
of an hour, and Mr. Bradlaugh will speak for the following
quarter of an hour, when the discussion will terminate to-ni'iht.

Mr. Cooper : I told you I came here in a friendly spirit, but as
this is the last time I shall have to address you, I must say I
have been grieved to observe a contrary spirit in you. I wish
that you could behave not like an audience of bagmen, and could
sit without clapping hands or makiug ejaculations, and crying up
some person, whether he has sense or not. (Cheers, hisses, and
confusion.) Why need you come here ? You say you want
truth, then why can't we discuss truth with all proper patience
and kindness, and not be clapping each other, with jeers, because
I suppose our friend understands sarcasm, which you Londoners
like so very much ? I am old and used to you. I used to see
all that thiug before. (Cheers, shouts, and hisses.) Well, I will sit
down if you do not want to hear me. (Cries of sit down, go oa
with your argument.) I discovered that sauce for goose was not
sauce lor gander here. (Cheers, hisses, and laughter.) Do not
be so very hard on a poor man. *'He cannot understand a word
of Greek," I thought every body knew that. *'But it was
wrodiT to bring into existence that which had no existence before.'*
Mr. Bradlaugh cinnot understand, and as he does not, he wants
a dtifiuition. I did not say that God was always willing. I did

29

not say there never was a period when he did not will a certain
thinj?. He may will something at one period, and some hi a^^ at
another period. But, then, we are told it did not follow that he
either should or did exist always. I repeat, that things may
have been present to his conscious intelligence before he created
them. It happens not to be mine, but Plato's universe, that is,
Plato's language — " all things are present to his conscious intel-
ligence before he created them." Our friend goes on, *^ I am an
old fa8hioned reader of old fashioned men.'' He tells me *' if it
be a quality of existence, it is a quality of all existence." There
are ditfereut qualities of the same existence, there is only one
intelligence ; but, says Mr. Brad laugh, if God be infioite, there
must be different Gods. If there be different men and different
intelligences, if he can create them anywhere, does it follow that
they do not understand ? Does he not understand this logic ? He
must know better than I speak that it must be so. (Hear.)
Some poor man said '^ hear." Well, I came to you as friends, I
came maintaining your sincerity. I never called you infidel, because
that term is generally used to signify blackguard. I never spoke
ill of you, I never questioned your sincerity, I do not question Mr.
Bradlaugh's sincerity. We come with the belief that God exists.
We believe it to be a most important belief, and most important
it is if it be true. I see no reason for calling this glass and my-
self different modes of the same existence. There may be soma
men here who think otherwise, but that is not proving they are
modes of the same existence. Well, existence that has passed
away may yet exist somewhere, although it is not present to my
vision. It is in my conscious intelligence, everything I have been
acquainted with. That is my meaning. I think it is clear enough,
but before I sit down, I will re-state my argument. I am told
that I argued inconsistently and unmeaningly. 1 will try again,
while I am in possession of the time, as it is the last opportunity
I shall have to-night. I exist. I say it for yourself now. I exist.
I have not always existed. Something must have always existed.
If there never had been a period when nothing existed, there must
have been nothing still. I am conscious of a personal, intelligent
existence, which must have always existed, otherwise it began to
be. It must have had a cause, and that cause must have been
intelligent or not ; non- intelligence cannot create intelligence.
Show me how it was. " Show me how you can infer the possi-
bility of intelligence," &c., is what I have been asking every lime
I rose to speak to-night. But he has not done it. I cannot see
how he can perceive that non-intelligence could bring intelligence
into existence. Since there w&s that always in existence, I must
have belief in another act of consciousness that I have exercised,
for I am certain from the observation of my own intelligence,
that something has always existed everywhere, in every part of

30

everywhere. Therefore, there are no lines of demarcation— it has
no motion such as you affirm of matter. I do not say that it has
no motion at all. It don't need to move to one point of every-
where, that is already in every part of everywhere, and there is
everywhere. And now I have clearly arrived in my own mind,
at the knowledge of an uncaused existence. It has become
clear to my perceptions that as this existence was everywhere,
it was omni- present, all-powerful, uncreated, underived, per-
sonal, conscious, reasonable existence. Then, I turn even towards
this material universe. It cannot be the something that always was.
I know that I exist now. I know that at two years old I existed.
I recognise change, and I know that I have changed ; that this
universe changes, and therefore it can't be that which has always
existed. I said I could move, mould, shape, fit, and design
matter. I can recognise the results of design, although I cannot
see the act of the mind. I reason by analogy, from my personal,
conscious existence, that men are contriving and designing ; if I
find their composition to consist of parts and peculiar fashions
adapted and fitted for the purpose it fulfils, and if the principle
on which it worked were simple, I should admire it, and by the aid
of reason, conclude that it had a personal, conscious, and intelli-
gent existence for its designer and contriver. Then, I look at
this curiously formed body, the bodies of animals ; and I remem-
ber the power of this hand, and when I look through a telescope
at those shining bodies in the heaven, and see their immensity,
and recognise them by the light of reason to be themselves the
suns of other systems, I then say he is al' -intelligent, since all-
intelligence must have come from him — he only existed from all
eternity — he is the author of all things. Whatever exists must
have been by his will, and by his power, therefore he is uncon-
trollable by any other will, and therefore he is maker of this
universe. I have said that he is not the mode, but that he exists
simply by his will, and in him we live, move, and have our
being — therefore, in him is my being and your being, and the
being of every animal, and that they can be kept in existence only
by One Almighty, all- wise, and everywhere present, self- existing,
self- created, underived, uncognised, personal, conscious, intelligent
being, whom I worship, and men call God. I have re-stated my
argument. If any one seeks to overturn it, let him go through it
step by step. No person has done so here. No person can do it.
It is an argument that shall not pass away, but must come every
day before your eyep, and possibly to your minds. (Cheers.)

Mr. Bradlaugh : Our friend says something exists, that the
universe exists. I reply, that if something now exists, you cannot
conceive when it did not exist. The supposition that there ever
was a period when the universe began to be, is introduced and
assumed without the slightest warrant for such an assumption.

31

You cannot limit its existence, you cannot limit its duration. He
says something is everywhere, but that the universe is finite in
extent, as it is, according to his view, finite in duration. He can-
not in thought put a limit as to how long the universe has existed,
or how far it extends. The duration and extent of existence are
alike illimitable. Then, be says that substance is not naturally
intelligent, and that the intelligence W3 find must result from
infinite intelligence. I have endeavoured daring this argument
to explain to him that intelligence was a word that could only be
properly used in the sense of a quality of a mode, in the same way
that you would use the word hardness, broadness ; and that as
you could not say it was all broad, or all hard, no more could
you say it was all intelligence, or without intelligence. I must
confess that I have never listened to any argument more pre-
tentiously and less ably put, than that of my friend to-night.
There was only one part of it that would, if complete, have
deserved any reply, and that he took imperfectly from Gilles-
pie, where you may see what his argument ought to have been,
for it is there put as clearly and comprehensively as possible.
He says, he comes here to talk to us in a friendly way. He
would assume that we had imported into this debate that which
lacks friendliness. If it be so, I regret it. But, when he is
asked the meaning of one term, he says he was not bound to tell
us that, and when a definition is given by me, and the argument
is approached on that basis, he says he meant no such thing. He has
said he will not reproach you as infidels, for that infidels are iden-
tified with blackguards. Infidel does not mean blackguard. It means
without faith, outside the faith, against the faith. Mr. Cooper is
infidel to every faith but his own. I am but in one degree more
8n infidel, and surely we are none the more blackguards because
we are opposed to the faith which he preaches. I am not ashamed
of the word infidel. Nobler men than ever I can hope to be,
truer men than I in my highest aspirations can pretend to be,
have been content to be classed among those who had that name
applied to them, and they have won it proudly in the age in which
they lived. There have been heroes in every age — infidels, if you
please— but I declare them heroes in the mental battle fiekls who
have been able to hold their own in life, assailed though they were
by calumny when the grave had received them. Our friend says
that he cannot tell why I speak of a glass and myself as different
modes of the same substance, but in my first speech I took pains
to define what I meant by substance. If he had a better defini-
tion, he should, in justice to his subject, have presented it to us ;
it was not for him to say he would not give it, and then to say
" I don't understand my opponent." But he says that " some-
thing could never have been produced from nothing. Intelligence
exists, and must therefore have been created by an all-wise intelli-

32

gent Deity." " T1 ere 'a either no existence without intelligence,
or there is existence without intelligence." My friend declares all
existence is not alike intelligent, but that some is unintelligent,
and in this I urge that he contradicts himself. If Mr. Cooper
is right in declaring that there is any substance non-intelligent,
then it can only be (on the hypothesis that God is infinite intelli-
gence) by supposing God in such case, and so far, to have anni-
hilated his intelligence. But, if there is any substance non-
intelligent, then intelligence is not infinite, and the God my friend
contends for does not exist. If God brouejht into existence that
which was not himself, but something different from himself, he
must have brought something not out of himself, but something
out of nothing ! He contradicts his own argument, and indulges
in the strangest assertions The universe is moveable, God is not.
He does not give us the slightest reason for this statement. He
declares that God is the master of the universe, but does not even
show you that he understands the relevancy of the argument
addressed to him. When he u^ed the phrase, he must have
meant either that what God created was the same as himself, or
different from himself. It could not have been the same as him^
self, otherwise there would have been no discontinuity, no break —
there would have been nothing to distinguish the creator from
the created — no break of continuity to enable us to conceive
creation possible. J^or could that which God created have been
different from himself, unless my opponent is prepared to con-
tend that things which have nothing in common with each other can
be the cause of, or aifect one another. This shows that Mr.
Cooper has not well considered the terms he employs. If our
friend bases any argument for God's existence upon his intelli-
gence, let him explain what he means. It is not enough for him
to take cognisance of the universe, and so cognise certain eff cts.
All those finite effects do not aid him one step towards the infi-
nite. His design argument was a structure without a founda-
tion. You have seen how little our friend can understand the
meaning of his own words. He has talked about his trials, and
yet he asked how I could talk about my misfortune^, I have
not yet talked of them. I have not said how men, when I was
yet at an early age, for these opinions drove me out from home,
and from all that I loved and was dear to me, and threw me within
sight of the truth, where I have had since the happiness of scriv-
ing for that truth — lifting up the banner of our cause, showing
that; true men may be made truer, and the world be better worth
living in than it was beiure the siruggic. (Gueers.)

SECOND NIGHT.

ON GOD AS MORAL GOVERNOE OF THE UNIVERSE.

At seven o'clock precisely Mr. Harvey, the Chairoiin, accorapa
nied by Mr. Cooper, Mr. Bradlaugh, and several represent ative
friends, came upon the platform, and were receivetl with loud
cheers. The Hail was not quite so crowded as on the first night,
but was well filled in every part.

The Chairman : I have to announce that the discussion will
now commence. With your permission I will read the subject from
the printed programme. The argument on the first night was
as to the Bting of God, to-night it is for the Being of God aa
Moral Governor of the Universe. As tufore, each speaker will
occupy half-an-hour and no more for his first speech, or as much
shorter a period as he may think proper, and afterwards a
quarter of an hour each. I must again ask the audience to give
me their confidence. I hope they will abstain from unnecessary
cheering or calls of time. If either speaker should get out of
order, I w'U remind him of it. I have no doubt, if you will
listen to the speakers till they have concluded, you will have an
evening of instruction, and be able to appreciate their arguments,

Mr. Cooper : If there is one w<^rd of more importance to me
than any other that could be mentioned — one word of mort- im-
portauce to me — to human beings, than any other, that word is
duty — duty, a word, I say, that is all-importaat to me. We are
not talking of the duty of piiJ[s, of doirs of rabbits, weasels, snails,
butterflies, bullocks, or elephants — duty belongs to man. Crea-
tures have no duty. We never Talk of the duty of a snail, of a
horse, of a cat, of a bullock. Duty belongs to man. (Cries of
yes, yes, and question.) Well, the parties of your side wh'> pro-
less a philosophic duty, seem to think that there is no such thing as
duty connected with religion. Who told tbi.m so? We believe
that there is a duty of religion, though we ought to obey our
own convictions. Well, but you say we are as moral as you are
on the other side — we follow duty. My question is to a person
who talks about moral duty as a result of philosophy. Is he a
perfect man? Is any of you a perfect man? If you are, send
your name to the Times, and be sure you have it put in the
second column, where they put all the curious advertisements — »

34

indeed, you mlgbt take a house in Belgrave Square, and people
would come to see you if you were a perfect man. But no ;
really I am not a perfect man, nor you. There are none of you
perfect men. Then, I say you, each of us, breaks his sense of
duty again and again. You get out of temper with your wives
and children — you ill use them very likely — you say something
that grieves them very much. Oh, it's all right — you were out
of temper ! You wonder at yourself for striking her; well, but
whenever any one has struck, or ill used, or trampled on you, you
come to a conviction of another kind. In two or three days,
perhaps, after you have been guilty of this misconduct, you are
sorry. You say, " what a scandal to have used my wife so." I
should not have done so. But you have done this often. You
say, I must not do these things again. You accuse yourself, you
threaten to flog yourself. What is all this ? But perhaps you
are a shopkeeper ; no matter what the article is that you sell.
A person comes into your shop : perhaps he is fastidious. You
think he has come in to get something as cheap as he can. There
is nothing doing. You show your articles. You say to your-
self, what am I to do with this man ? He has spent a quarter of
an hour in your shop, you seem to have had some time waiting
upon him. Something begins to say to you, ** rent and taxes
must be paid." He seems to want tbe article. Yes, it's a very
well manufactured article. Yes, is the reply, what will you take
for it ? You hesitate ; you say to yourj^elf, "I must, I will have
as much as I can get for it." He pays you your price, and you
are struck with wonder. So off he goes. You have charged
him pretty well. It comes up in your mind that day. You
say to yourself, I have to support a family — it is very difficult to
support a family, also to pay rent and taxes. So you reason
against rates and taxes — wife and children — it beggars you — and
so on. Again, you fall into habits of drink. Some sensible
fellow said to you one day — Turn teetotaler. Depend upon it
he was a sensible fellow who said that — gave you that advice.
You thought it was rather hard at first ; you tried it, however,
and you found how effectual it was. When you got up in the
morning you said, " How light I feel — how comfortable I am.
I am not a slave to drink, I do not wallow in the sty,
a sleep does not oppress me now as it did before. One
day last summer, when it was very hot, there was an excur-
sion to Gravesend. You wanted relaxation. Young people
are rather fond of that, so you went on the excursion, and
you stopped now and then to see the country. At last you saw
somebody take a glass of porter. You were thirsty. He asked
you to have one, as you were one of the party. Well, you are
over-persuaded. Yoii take one. You felt it was wrong, a bad
step. But why, how couid this be? I need take no more. But

35

you do drink another glass, and your thirst is not slaked. Then
somebody said to you, take a drop of something short, that will
quench your thirst. And so you do, and your senses come short.
You get into bed. You have burning ; a great drum thunder*
ing through your head. But conscience comes up, and then you
say—" I am a brute again. I have gone into drunkenness
again." How was it that you felt condemnation ? How was it
you felt condemnation as a husband, a father, or a man — all that
condemnation ? I am sure you could not help it. I do not care
whether you call yourself Atheist, Deist, Sceptic, Freethinker, or
whatever you call yourself, you could not help it. It is a part
of your nature, of a moral nature that you have diflferent from
the inferior animals, that you should have remorse for doing
wrong. You threaten to flog yourself, to lacerate yourself for it.
A man may continue to ofiend against this something. Stop,
what do you mean by a moral nature ? We talk about defining
words. It is quite necessary to define this word. I remem-
ber Robert Cooper being present here so long ago as March,
1856, about the time that I was avowing a change in my
opinions, and another time in John Street. He did not
reply to me in a speech, but he did so in a pamphlet. In that
pamphlet, he showed that he did not understand what I have
said. " Man has an immoral nature, and, therefore, he has a
moral government where he has an immoral nature." If that
was the amount of his acquaintance with the form of moral
philosophy, it showed he knew nothing about the matter in the
philosophic sense. Man has not an immoral nature, but a moral
nature. It is called ** moral sense '* by Shaftesbury, " moral
reason " by Reid, consciousness by Butler, and is a power within
man which warns him of what is right and what is wrong. It
don't matter where he is — where he lives — what land he possesses
— what language he speaks, or what colour he is — he is sure to
ask of it, and the reply is infallible, What is right and what is
wrong ? Oh ! but that is not consciousness, says the other side.
We say there is no such power. It is a thing of education, you
say. It depends on how a man has been instructed. " Your
conscience is not my conscience, one man's conscience is not
another's.'* The conscience of a Jew is not that of a Christian ;
the conscience of a civilised man is not the same as that of a
savage. ** It is a thing of education." To be sure ! Well, but
somebody says I cannot understand what conscience is. What
is this moral nature ? Let us try to understand. It is a faculty
in man that discerns that there is right and wrong, and testi*
mony is infallible — a faculty, no doubt, that needs to be educated.
You cannot educate it in animals— it is not there. There must
be a right for a man to do right, a wrong to do wrong, each of
which his spiritual nature recognises and distinguishes. I shall,

36

of course, contend that we have in this Christian country the
highest ttioral teaching in Christianity itself; and if this were
denied, a high moral sense, which some of ray friruds would attri^
bnte to the discernment of reason. Moral sense, I say, is the
clearest and strongest discernment of moral nature — it discerns to
practise what is right ; that virtue, truth, honour, and so on de-
serve praise, and in their very nature confer their own reward ;
that the practise of vice, error, which we call wickedness, sin,
and trangie aion^ deserve punishment. Man has this moral sense.
He has not an immoral nature, which says that virtue deserves
punishment and error reward. Robert Cooper, therefore, did
not know what he was talking about. There is this faculty in
man — it is part of his intellectual nature. Conscience responds to
it more or less ; and as he is a free agent, so he can resist and sin
against it, which he does easily, so that he sears it as with a red hot
iron, and he may sin on till he is steeped to the lips in vice ;
still there it is. For instance, a man meets another who
looks very hard at him in the street. He bolts down the next
entry. He says, " that man knows me.'* He wishes it was dark
so liiat nobody would know him, and when it is dark, and he is
in bed, he pulls down the sheet over his face. Criminals have
made these confessions. Oh ! says somebody, you don't call that
conscience; didn't Pahner, that Rugby fellow, die as hard as
iron ; he could not have what ycu call conscience ? Now, I wish
you would listen to a person of extreme credibility, who had it
from that criminal himself — viz., Mr. Goodacre, the clergyman
who attended Palmer every night in the gaol. When Palmer
went b^ck to the gaol after the trial, he was as hard as iron. But
the last night came — he was in the condemned cell. The chap-
lain spoke to him, but it was, so to speak, like pouring water upon
a duck's back. There w&s no conversion. The clergyman goes to his
lodgings, and prays to brino' the unhappy criminal to a sense of his
situation. He felt also that he could not go to bed ; doubt pressed
upon his mind as to whether he had said all that he ought to
have said, for before eight o'clock the next morning all would be
over. *' I may not," said this gentleman to himself — *'I may not
have said all that I ought to say — I must say all that I can." He
went back and knocked at the prison door — by law the chaplain
can get admission into the gaol at any hour. This is the rela-
tion given by the gentleman, which exactly illustrates the case in
point. He entered the cell where the wretched man was. " I
am come to apeak to you," said the chaplain. "I must come and
speak to you. You are a great sinner, I am come to say that
there is pardon for you," and he alluded to the thief who was
pardoned on the cros=«. ** Will you try," he exclaimed, *' and con-
fess vour sin, and you may yet find pardon.'' It had such an effect
on Palmer that he asked — ** How pardon ? If I should confess about

37

my wife, I should have to confers about my brother too.'* Why,
returned the chaplain, and did you murder your brother also ?
And Palroer clung to the bed stock with both hands, and grortned
as if he would rend his soul. That groan was the voice of con-
science. He had sinned against his conscience. But you say
this was not remorse for crime, for this was not, in his character .
Just imagine to yourself an old lion who entered into a corner of
the wilderness, and groaning because he had killed so many
antelopes, or a cat into the chimney corner, because she had
killed so many mice ! How does this happen but because we
have this moral nature ? What does it tell us that vice and
wickedness are wrong, that untruthfulness, tyranny, despotism,
sensuality, all deserve blame and punishment — that virtue, honour,
goodness, self-denial, benevolence, deserve praise and reward — in
a word, it is a dictate of the mind of man ? How comes this to be,
but that there is a moral governor to whom we are accountable ?
We cannot get rid of the responsibility. Deny it as we please, it
is there ; it follows the moral governor exists. We look on his
moral government. We see organic law punishing man for sin.
We sin ; punishment fearfully suddenly overtakes the wicked.
Men speak and talk about it. We see vice triumphant, men
wading through blood and gaining a throne ; kings grasping
liberty by the neck, and as each moment rolls on dishonesty,
violence, and weakness successful. Well, say you, is it part of
the moral government that we see the rich getting wealth and
the poor growing poorer, and virtue and poverty sufferinor to-
gether? You look on the great man. There is happiness, you
exclaim, and you say, ** this is not right according to the principles
of your moral government." You can only come to this conclu-
sion at last, and that is my conclusion, that he could only resist
the sense of moral conviction, he could only disobey this sense of
responsibility, because God*8 moral government has only begun,
and is not completed. There must be a state where wrong will
be righted — where no four millions of black slaves shall be
lorded ovtr by white men— no bad men sit on thrones, no good
men be imprisoned. There must be a state of equality. What
we see in progress here must be worked out finally. We see in all
these things around about us proof that man i^ a being of pro-
gress, and which shows that he cannot be limited to this state of
existence. This cannot be the be-all and the end-all. I con-
clude that this is only the beginning, and that we are going on;
that this lif^e is not the conclusion of our existence — that a moral
governor exists, that his moral government has begun progressing
towards perfection. We cannot deny that it is here. You say
there is no moral government. Then why are you punished :
has not sin its penalty ? Why this discontent, this uneasiness, if
there be no hereafter, no accouatability ? When you see a throne

88

like Louis Napoleon's, who will say there is no hereafter ? If
there were not, why not act like great Caesar himselt ? Cato
could have aided him, and Caesar drove him to suicide. Why is
all this if there be no moral government ? What does it prove ?
This, that a moral governor exists. (Cheers.)

Mr. Bradlaugh : I am delighted to be able to pay the speaker
who has just sat down, the only compliment that has seemed his
due during the time he has spoken since the commencement of
this discussion. It is that he has occupied, with a degree of skill
which I am utterly unable to imitate, a large portion of your
time, but without the slightest relevance to the question which we
are met to discuss. It says a great deal for the presence of mind
of any speaker, seriously to address an audience not in the spirit
of comedy, but in all solemnity, for so long a period without
touching the subject. It says a great deal for his tact when he
can get through twenty-eight minutes of the time in talking
altogether beside the question, and put into the last two minutes
a sort of preface to the topic for debate in lieu of a serious argu-
ment. Last evening we had but little approach to discussion, and
were I content to leave the question where my friend has left it
this evening, we should have no discussion at all. There has not
been a particle of evidence adduced by him for the existence of a
moral governor of the universe (hear, hear, and cheers). In all
that he has said there is not a scintilla of evidence, but in lieu we
ha^e some hopes, but however patent his hopes, and however
certain his prophecy, the facts he has stated are evidence only to
himself and not to me. I fancied that my friend was to state the
argument lor, and affirm the being of God, as moral governor of
the universe. If he has done anything at all, the most that he
has effected was to allege, without evidence, that there was such
a person or being as he called moral governor of the universe ;
some such thing as that which he called a moral nature, and that
is some evidence for the existence of some being who gave that
moral nature to the individual possessing it. That is the fullest
possible extent to which he has carried his argument. He was
obliged to qualify it, such as it was, with numerous admissions.
He admitted that this faculty which he callad moral sense or
conscience, was a faculty requiring education ; but then he says —
*' It is a faculty which discerns that there is right and that there
is wrong.'* I submit, on the other hand, that a man has no
separate faculty, but that his conscience is the result of the
education of the whole of his faculties — that man has no sepa-
rate conscience other than is the result of the condition in which
all his faculties may be at any one time of his life, none certainly
that would enable him to judge right and wrong independently
of his education. I submit that a child newly born is without
any such faculty, that it is entirely destitute of any faculty that

39

would enable it to judge right and wrong, and that that which
my friend calls moral nature, I repeat, is but the result of the
education of all the faculties in man — further, that what he calls
man's moral nature, if any one chooses to examine the matter
closely, will be found to vary with tribes, countries, and climates,
vary even with the same individuals at various periods of their
lives, and from such a varying, shifting standard you are to pro-
duce the evidence of an immutable Deity as moral governor of
the world. If it be po-sible to effect such a demonstration, my
friend will have to display a talent for logic which he has not
manifested during this debate. Let us see whether his facts were
correct. I submit, even if they were, they were worth nothing,
as being irrelevant ; that if everything he said were true, from
Alpha to Omega, then it is not worth anything. But I submit
that what he alleged as facts, are not so. " Did you ever hear,"
asks my friend, *' of a lion that was stricken with remorse over
the numerous animals he has slaughtered ?" Did you ever hear of
a Thug who, having committed murders by the score, felt joy rather
than remorse for his conduct ? What conscience taught him that
he was more sacred to his deities for the skill displayed in his mur-
ders ? Our friend, who certainly manifested a more philosophic
conception of words than he vn as able to manifest on the last
night of discussion, might have given us a novel definition of
conscience had he read some essays on the practices of Thuggee,
which he might have found in some of our old review — I have
several of these passing through my mind at the present moment
— he would have also found some extremely serviceable evidence
taken before a parliamentary commission, upon the terrible prac-
tice of strangling prevailing among the Thugs of India. He
would have found how faithful wives and good mothers to their
children could regard the taking away human life as a positive
virtue, and a matter deserving praise and reward, and that the
more murders they committed, the holier the devotees of Bowanee
regarded themselves. So far from being like Palmer, groaning
as though he would rend his heart, these Thugs regarded murder
as matter of ^ibsolute virtue, making them better men and women
than, according to their belief, they could be otherwise. If this
stood alone it would be enough to at least neutralise all that our
friend put before you, but we shall be able to deal with this
question of the moral governance of the universe hereafter more
effectually than this. The whole of our friend's argument was
founded on what he calls man's moral nature. I submit that if
his facts had been true, they would not be much evidence on the
subject. But he has cleverly tried to turn the tables on myself.
He said, if there were not this remorse, this uneasiness, this
misery, what inducement would you atheists have to be virtuous ?
But suppose 1 showed this was not the subject lor debate— sup-

40

pose I should urge, as I might have done, that it was only to
introduce an excuse for the occupation of time, that ihis point was
urged, and suppose I did not choose to take up the question, how
much would that advance my frieud's case ? He was to prove the
existence of a moral governor for the universe. And as he has not
chosen to battle on his own ground, he requires that I should
breach his fortress, and storm it for him. I will therefore accept
the issues that he has laid before you. But before doing so,
permit me to paint you to one or two matters that seem to strike
against the moral governance of God. Is there a moral governor
rewarding virtue. How then is vice in luxury while virtue is
starving ? How can you account for this, that when two thousand
women kneel in one church, that he permitted them to be burnt
and suffocated there ? If you cannot deal with these two thousand,
I will put before you millions instead of thousands. Instead of
these women dying in sudden anguish, rushiog round the church,
and crying out to God for mercy, who showed them none, I will
point to millions in the world dying slowly from poverty, that
strikes them down in lingering misery, and whom God pities no*".
This gr at tact meets you in the face, that if there be a governor,
he allows human beings to come into the world taster ;hau food
for them, and that starvation and misery strike myriads down
to die of disease amidst squalid misery. You may tell me thatj
poverty constituted a crime ; it is a disgrace to the world that
it is so. God the moral governor of the universe ! When in the
square of Warsaw women and chil Iren prayed to God for help,
for life, for moral strength, when they besought him to hear
their prayer for liberty, and to alleviate their sufferings, you will
hardly tell me that God was moral governor of the universe
when he permitted the Cossack's lance point to drink the blood
from their breasts as answer to their praying. You will not say
that God is governor, and yet that this happened without punish-
ment on the guilty. But you say that because these wrongs are
not redressed here, they will be hereafter. Who made you prophet
for kingdom come? Who gave you the right to require us to
look mildly and contentedly upon all evils here, on the ground ^
that they will be put right in another world ? You tell me that [
when a man is starved to death in this world, he will be ted in the
next, when he can eat no longer ; or that if he is unjustly put
here in the prison cell, that it is what God pitases, and that God
will set all this right at some future time. Set it right ! How-
can you hope that ? He it is, if governor, who causes the child
to be born in poverty and misery, and without power to extricate
itself, and helpless to contend against the woe surrounding it.
He kept its parents starving, that they mi^rhtgive the unfortunate
babe a wretched physique. It was he who made the only instructor
of the child, the police or the magistrate. He brought the child

from the cradle to the gallows, with a hempen cord round its rseck
— he who initiated it into the world helpless to avoid the crime —
he who ended its career there, helpless to escape the retribution.
You make God do all this ill, then you tell me I am a blasphemer
(loud cheers and hisses, which were protracted for some time).
It is you, and not I, who is blaspheming — you, when you affirm that
God rules and that innumerable wrongs result ; it is you and not
I who affirm that God rewards vice with imperial purple, virtue
with threadbare, fustian ; it is you, and not I, who affirm that
God deals thus unfairly with his people. And when tne earth-
quake— as that at Lisbon — comes, when it rends not merely the
mansion of the rich but the hovel of the poor, and when after
rending these, it leaves thousands dying from plague and starva-
tion in the streets of a great city whose inhabitants it thus
steeped in ruin and misery, by that which you say is the act of
God — don't tell me of one or more acts apparently beneficent as
illustrating his goodness and sense, until you deal with these acta
80 clearly malevolent. Do not tell me that God punishes the
wrong-doer here, or if you do, I will ask you why you drag
another world of punishment out of the future ? Don't tell me
of some wicked men stricken down in the streets to die by God's
decree, for if you do, then do I say, that God is unjust in smiting
a few and sparing the majority. Yoar argument lor God's moral
power is at an end unless you can explain why the imperial mur-
derer is spared and the ragged wretch is stricken. (Cheers, hisses,
and confusion). If you want to hiss, wait till I have Sciid some-
thing better to deserve it.

The Cnairman : I beg that you will keep order.

Mr. Bradlaugh : You shall have enough to hiss for when I
shall have said what I wish to say against your threadbare
theology, and it is indeed that which I impeach. (Ciieers, and cries
of question and time).

The Chairman : It gentlemen will be quiet and not cheer so or
cry question, all will be able to hear. I will call time when it is
proper to call time (Cheers)

Mr. Bradlaugh : You ask me why I do not steal ; why I do
not lie ; why 1 do not, like a neighbouring scoundrel, aspire to a
kingdom, breaking oaths and shedding blood to gain my point.
I will endeavour to tell you why, but to do this, I must take
up your position that vice must be punished and virtue rewarded
in some luture state. I will say that from the Atbeist's point
of view that is not so. All mere punishment for crime past is
in itself a crime, a wrong, and is only to be delended in so far
as it goes to the prevention of crime future, but not in so far
as it can be regarded as vengeance ibr crime past. The Atheist
view is not that crime should be punished by some overlooking
judge, but that it carries with it its own punishment in liir ^ r;

42

man's present happiness and increasing his present misery. The
Aiheist does nut argue that virtue will gain him Heaven here-
aiter, but declares that it spreads happiness around the virtuous
doer here, and makes happiness for him because it makes hap-
piness amongst his fellows — honesty, truth, manhood, virtue,
work their own reward in renderiog happy the doer of them,
and in spreading pleasure in the circle in which he moves. You
admit that God suffers rascals to climb into thrones, and permit
his clergy, who at least should know his will, to pray to him to
keep them there. You who know that God has permitted a
great country to be heavily taxed for the support of a clique of
raj^cals who perpetrated the coup d'etat^ and inaugurated the
reii^n of the imperial scoundrel who now rules in God's
name, aad as God's anointed. You say he is going to punish in
the next world the man who thus climbed into a throne in
this, when we know, if your argument be true, he could not have
climbed there without G xi's help. God knew beforehand the
designs of the man v^ho bj.»ke his solemn oath to the young
Republic; but this man cou'd not have perjured himseli without
God's permission, if he be \\\q omnipotent eovprnor you say,
any more than he could have clmihed to a thione without his
aid. God then, according to you, must have helped this cri-
minal here in order to punish him some other time. Is that so ?
If these are your views of God as moral governor of the
universe, I give way at once. They are unanswerably absurd.
Bat does this dispose of the question ? I do not think it does. I
should like our friend, when he pleases to deal with the
question in what he calls its philosophic sense, to be a little
more profuse of his explanations than he was inclined to be
during the discussion of last evening. As to the moral teaching
of Christ, he will find no one more ready than I am to con-
sider that question. But we have nothing to do with Christ
here to-ni^jfht, any more than we have to do with Mahomet,
Moses, or Zoroaster. If he wants to tell me that Christ has
given us a moral system without reproach, I will reply that
under no system of morality which can pretend to be without
blemish, is so much vice permitted. Christianity is a system
which teaches submission to injury ; courting wrong, and volun-.
teering yourself for oppression. I will tell him, that at present
I pa;8 it by, because it is not the subject of our argument; it
is no purt of the argument, and is at least a mistake, unless
he introduces it for the purpose of evading the real question, as
also the question arising on his allegation of man's free agency.
If he would discuss to-night Christian morality, he might have
put it forward fairly as a subject for discussion, when I should
be ready to meet him. He tells me that he is a free agent. He
had much better have supported his argumen": on both evenings

43

by some facts, instead of relying on naked allegations. I will
endeavour to show him the most convincing testimouy of free
agency that could be required. He says that man is a free agent,
for he can sin against his conscience. I say that he cannot sin —
man cannot resist the circumstances that result in volitioo. As to
this he has had no freedom of selection. What are these cir-
cumstances? First his org nisation, then the education affect-
ing that organisation to the moment of volition. I say that
no man is perfectly free to choose his education, or the organi-
sation educated up to the moment of volition. To talk, there-
fore, of man sinning against his conscience — itself the result of
education — is to tell you the grossest absurdity that could be
put before you. Well, Samuel Taylor Coleridge says that any
act to be a sin must be originated in the will entirely apart
from and independent of all circumstance extrinsic to the >«ill.
I say there is not this volition preceding any act resulting from
the will, but that all volition is the result of various circum-
stances conducing to the wil'. Then our friend somewhat
abruptly refers to the thief on the cross who got into paradise.
I will admit, if he wants to try the question according to Bible
Christianity, the greatest rascals on earth are the most likely
to be rewarded in heaven ; and if that establishes anything in
favour of moral governance of the world by God, then the New
Testament, corroborated by the Old, shows that those who have
been liars, thieves, and murderers, have got into heaven by God's
^race, while some of those who have been especially truthM and
honest became the others' victims on earth, and were kept out
of heaven. If any of you doubt that, however, I will abandon it, as
the only evidence is that of the Bible, which for me is indefensible,
though for him it is unanswerable. God is an immutable being,
our friend says, and yet declares that his moral government is
begun but not completed. He urges that because vice is
triumphant here, that this must be set right hereafter, that God
the immutable will change his mode of governance, that slavery
he e is to be compensated by eternal freedom hereafter. If this
is to be taken a^ evidence of future and more complete moral
governance, it must also be taken that the moral government is
at present incomplete, and therefore is no evidence of ability in
the governor to govern more perfectly. He either lacks desire or
ability. One supposition denies his goodness, the other his power.
Then you say, '* that the wicked who escape here shall be sent to
hell fire hereafter." I am obliged, you add, to admit that the
moral government is incomplete, but these rascals will be punished
by and by, though before this takes place, though betore this
retribution comes, they will be dead. Good men will be rewarded
in the nexc world who have starved in this. Have not men who
made the world resound with the fame of their intellect and utility

44

of their philosophy, died in garrets neglected and uncared for !
Have they not been villified and calumniated for centuries — men
wliose brows were bound with laurel, the fruit of their own self-
reliant genius in this world, and oh, by-and-by, God will reward
them. The men who have struggled for liberty have been stricken
down, and have died despairing, while you have been obliged to
admit vice triumphant, despite the moral governor. What, I ask,
is the object of the war that is raging only a few hundred miles
from where we stand ? Does it rage for the rights of man, for
his liberties, for any great principle, or for the purpose of setting
up one piece of state tinsel against another ? Who is it that keeps
this strife up — who starves to pay for this — the people, those whom
you tell me are God's people, whom God cares for, whom God
helps ? Never till they help themselves — never till they are able to
strike for themselves — never till they upraise themselves. For
those who tell me of a moral government by God, I will turn to
them the whole map of the world, each page of its history, and I
challenge you to show me any people whom God ever helped
until they helped themselves. (Cheers.) Amongst the tribes of
uncivilised people, or even amidst more favoured nations, where
there was the more ignorance the people were more on their knees
praying and less on their feet thinking. It was there where men
were more trodden down, were more serfs, more slaves ; there
was always a priesthood to help the king, but never the people.
Where then is the moral government of the universe ? Not by
God. Where even the governance of society ? Not by God but man,
by human intellect ; not by Church edict, but by human thought ;
not by a moral government outside the world, which teaches right
and wrong according to a standard that can never be altered ; but
rather by the advancing knowledge of each hour which, with
better intbrmation, discovers evil to-morrow where it is yet unseen
to-day, and finds truth to-day where yesterday belief had found
no trace of it. Mankind must be saved by the development of
its common humanity, and we strive in this to advance with
certam steps to the great truths scattered in the depths of the
mighty unknown around us. We seek to gather not pearls,
sapphires, rubies, and diamonds, but truths, that we may build
them into a priceless moral diadem, and therewith crown the
whole human race. (Loud Cheers.)

Mr. Cooper : (Cries of " go on. Tommy .*') I will be very much
obliged if you will never clap your hands any more when I rise. I
feel really tired of complaining thus, and I might as well not occupy
your time in this matter, for I am tired of this childish sort of
work, and if anything could disgust me more it would be this silly
laughter. Thomas Cooper is not a man to be laughed at. T have
been a long time on this platform ; I was never a disgrace to it
(nor any other) when I was on it. I never deserted a good prin-

45

ciple that once impressed me ; I do not know why you are to treat
me in this manner. I think a man of fifty-nine years of age ought
to have some reverence. You have (turning to Mr. Bradlaugh)
just complained before sitting down that every speech delivered
by me as yet was beside the mark — as if a man could live fifty-
nine years and then argue as if he talked nonsense whenever he
opened his mouth, I have not heard an argument — not a frag-
ment of an argument, in answer to what I have stated. Mr.
Bradlaugh says the most I have done is to affirm that man was
not a moral nature. There are many faculties, he says, but the
child has no faculty. That is no argument. In answer, I say the
child has faculties, but does not display them, that everybody
knows, and no one can deny it. Then "God cannot be immutable
because he creates mutable creatures. He must be mutable
because the creatures must be mutable." Where ie the contradic-
tion ? Then he proceeds, ** If what I said were facts, they were
not facts." How has that been shown ? Because something was
done amongst Thugs. I have not heard about the Thugs. I know
nothing about these young women who were glad they had com-
mitted more murders than others. They exulted in it. Now if
any man says there is no moral sense in Thugs, I should like to
have some conversation with him before I believed him. I appeal
to you and not to Thugs. He said, I cleverly tried to throw my
friend off, to turn the tables on him, and some person imme-
diately said '' hear.'' Do you mtan to call me a liar ? I never had
Mr. Bradlaugh in my thoughts. I will re-affirm that he said
that I would introduce anything to occupy the time. He com-
menced by stating that I had manifested something like a philo-
sophic apprehension of the meaning of words which had no mean-
ing, and that I was trying to keep your attention from the ques-
tion. Well, there are only the Thugs before us at present. There
is only an appeal to persons* nature — we are talking of acts ; we
are going to what our friend says appears to be complete disproof
of the moral government of the universe. He has not dealt with
that fact, that great fact, which you must feel to be fact yourself.
I mean conscience. Can any one of you tell me that he does not
feel when he is sinning against his conscience ? Why then do you
read with such zest the confessions of criminals, the workings of
the human mind, the convictions of a man that he is a scoundrel,
a bloodthirsty villain ? " Oh, sinning against conscience is the
greatest absurdity that can be mentioned." Is it ? Strange procla-
mation this in the middle of the 19th century. If this is philoso-
phy, I do not know what the world will say to it. Abolish all
the laws of government ! What is the use of them ? Well, a
man cannot sin against conscience. Do you see what it is you
diefend (hear, hear). Will you have the kindness not to cheer a
sentence of that sort without thinking ? Then we heard about

46

2,000 women whom God shut in and delivered up to the most
terrible of deaths. Then again, I was esteemed a person who had
pretended to look into the iuture. Will our freind say that God
showed them no mercy ? That is a very large undertaking for my
friend. Then there is the poverty of millions born into the world
and no food to support them. I say plenty of food, but men are
bad one to another. Man is an enemy to man. What sort of
government would you have ? Had you rather that man had
been a moral agent and have no choice ? But you know that you
have a choice, you feel that you can choose, you are sensible of it.
" God cannot make us free.** Indeed. And you say, ** subject at
the same time." You allude to the punishment which is inflicted
upon men by God in conformity with the organic formation of
their bodies. "Millions in poverty." Yes, indeed, many of them
suffering deeply. Some, however, are poor by their own fault.
Some men are idle and will not work, others spend their wages,
others beat their wives, and others are dishonest. Among the
rich there are dishonest also, so there are dishonest amonsj the poor,
and so suffering comes by a man's own fault, folly, or vice, as the
case may be. But, says Mr. Bradlaugh, there were 2,000 women
burnt out of existence. The attention drawn to that topic was
something extraordinary to be addressed to men's judgments.
He says', did moral government exist then, but then 12,600 persons
have died since we came into this room, 84,000 odd, or 32 millions
eyery year. Men die in suffering and great pain. Those 2,000
left children, brothers, relatives, so have the 2,000 that die hourly.
But who complains of the order of life ? Can you tell me of any
particularly good son that would like his father to live for ever ?
How can we believe in a world constituted as this is of men and
animals — who will say that life should be perpetual ? Now think
of these 2,000 poor women, they were free beings, those priests also,
whom they say acted so cruelly, delivered them over to the Virgin,
and all that sort of thing, but God is not to force man to be good
if he be a free agent. I am asked who made me a prophet of the
moral nature as well as of God's declaration ? I feel this con-
demnation, and I know by it what is wrong. I feel some great
constitutional disease. In the progressive nature of men there must
be moral disease. They would not be governed without it. God
does not train up children to be slaves. I am not to talk about
blasphemy, for there was a hiss when it was mentioned, and you
cheered Mr. Bradlaugh in his sallies against Deity, so that I
should not wonder to hear a hiss when you hear it affirmed that
God trains up a child for happiness. I say God has a moral
government, and that he makes free beings. Men act on each
other's circumstances. The mere talk about they could not choose
where they were born, that they could not choose their food, that
they were under the control of circumstances, is mere talk and

47

nothing more. Circumstances do not altogether control me. I
have trampled on circumstances a hundred times. Men do right
and wrong, we are actuated by it. We sin against our conscience,
where should be the absurdity of God's government being begun
and net completed? If God exists, he exists 'from all eternity, and
he has made millions of beings who exist also. Is it to be deuied
that one object of his government is that he purposes thes?* beings
for a hiciher state? This higher state stands before them an
eternity sof happiness if they will conduct themselves properly in
this state of trial. I may here take notice that I have been
faithful to my part of the engagement. Mr. Bradlaugh has some-
times spoken so loudly I never thought I had a right to say that
has nothing to do with the question. But I see my time is gone
by, and I must reserve what I have to say.

Mr Bradlaugh : I frankly and unreservedly retract the com-
pliment I paid my friend for his ability in evading the subject.
It would be improper in me to persist m tendering him a compli-
ment which he repudiates. I also frankly confess I now do not
know for what purpose the first speech was delivered at all, and
this the more because the second speech has not improved the
position. Our friend has been kind enough to express his opi-
nion, that it is hardly fair towards a speaker to urge that his
speech has nothing to do with the question. Surely my friend
wants me to offer my opinion on his speech. I have done so; and
if any ot the audience agree with my view, so much the worse
for the speech, because it would show that it produced on the
mind of more than one person an impression, that our friend had
not proved anything which he had proposed to atfirm. As to
the moral faculty in a child, Mr. Cooper says the child has no
faculty for some years. I ask whether children up to a certain
aire are without aid from the moral government, and whether
they are not in more need of it than men with matured faculties ?
I ask him whether his argument does nob altogether break down
when needed most ? He says that I based an argument on the
fact of man being mutable, wiiiist God is urged to be immutable.
This is n?t so. Our friend had urged that men were imperfect —
and I put it to you that we con d hardly expect an imperfect
result from a perfect creation and a perfect creator — a being with
ability to make perfect if he pleased. If I have not made this
clear to you before, I hope I have done so now. Mr. Cooper
declares that he has not heard much about the Thugs hugging,
and that I must bring this huo-ging business closer to you. My
frieno boasts that this argument is very wide and wiihout effect,
I cannot very well oblige my friend by dwelling at any great
length on this phase of human error and crime ; for I cannot
do him the injustice to suppose that, in h«i endeavours to judgd
fairly of moral nature, he should purposely have left out the

43

history of a large portion of mankind when generalising on the
whole, so that he might make out an argupaeat for the moral
government of the world. *' The Thugs/' he says, *' are a
long way off." So was Jesus Christ a long way off. If any ad-
verse argument is implied in being a long way oiF, I retort that
they are not so far away as Moses, so distant as David, so far
away as Jonah or Jeremiah, I am not quite so far off as these,
and I must tell him if he will dispute the fact of Thugee strang-
ling, he must do so boldly. I will undertake to affirm it. If he
does not know whether the facts he talks about are facts,
he ought not to challenge them by inuendo. The audience will
be able to judge for themselves, whether my friend did not leave
them with an equivocal sort of denial which m^iy mean either
admission of their verity or allegation that they are not correct.
Say you do not know anything about these facts, or that you do
not believe ; if you say you do not believe them, I will undertake
to prove them. It may fairly be that, however well a man may
be read, he cannot be presumed to know everything, and your
ignorance is no weapon in my hand. Does he take pains to tell
you what he means by the word sin, or what he means by the
word conscience ? He has not done so, yet persists in speaking
of morality, as though it always and everywhere had one mean-
irg. Here it is immoral to have two wives. In Turkey it is
not immoral to have two wives. The consciences of the men
who commit polygamy in Turkey, do not burthen them with re-
morse, because they have committed what we here should term
a crime. I object to the word sin, because theologians have at-
tached a cant meaning to it which I deny. My friend has not
told you his definition. He uses it as though it conveyed a
meaning in which you are all agreed. An act which a man could
not help committing, is not a sin. The wretch who steals a loaf
of bread because starvation, ignorance, poverty, misery, squalor,
and degradation have surrounded him, is not even in your eyes
so guilty as a person of better education and better circumstances,
I wiil put it to you further, that there are many cases in every-
day life, when the same act condemned in one instance, so far
from being regarded as culpable, finds precisely the contrary ver-
dict in another. If this be so, our friend's discernment of the
moral government of God is exceedingly short-sighted, flow,
then, does he speak of a common standard for judging right and
wrong ? I will take you to a great many decent men and women
who would rather prefer stealing to being atheists, and who
would regard it as a greater crime to entertain such opinions as
I hold than to be guilty of theft. To me it is no sin against my
conscience. It reproves me not ; on the contrary, the mode in
which my faculties hav^beeu educiited makes me believe it an
honour to hold and a vo^ these views. He is not dealing with

49

you fairly when he puts it that men have a common standard of
right and wron^. He said, why deal with the two thousand so
sadly burned, and not with millions dyicg around us? That was
what I did. It was only in one or two short sentences I referred
to the Chili catastrophe, in a few words that 1 dealt with the two
thousand, and then especially commented on the millions killed by
poverty and disease. My friend replies — the case of the two
thousand poor women startles us from the relief in which it
stands out from the great picture of millions that are stricken down,
that are crushed by poverty — which poverty, he says, only exists
by men's misdoings, but which I say exists, if there is a moral
governor of the universe, because he keeps it there. For whose
misdoing is a poor child born of weak parents, for whose mis-
doing are the parents starving in an unhealthy home with in-
sufficient clothmg, wretched surroundings, squalid, and with
teaching worse than none ? On whom are we to charge
all this? On the father, on the mother? This cannot be,
because both father and mother are but a part of the sqi-alor,
wretchedness, and misery that existed before them. Then does
God the moral governor of the universe allow all this, never
stopping the pain — never checking the evil ? Our friend has
made a most extraordinary admission. He says these things
result from man's misdoing. We will take it that a man does
wrong sometimes — he does it, then, in spite of G.)d or by his
permission, or by his instigation ; but he cannot do it in spite of
God, for Mr. Cooper says ttiat God is omnipotent, therefore it is
impossible to do anything against his power — against his will.
The wrong doer must either be instigated tO'the wrong doing by
God, or permitted by God to do it ; but God being infinite in his
will to permit, would be to compeL It is the same to instigate
as to leave the path for a man to do wrong, who without this
could not help but do right. All wrong and misery exist by
God's wish or against it. But it cannot exist against God's wish
if he be all-powerful ; nor does Mr. Cooper think evil exists
against God's wish, for he makes God remedy hereafter that
which he might prevent here. God, all-powerful, has the ability
to prevent misery ; God, omniscient, knows how to exercise this
ability ; and God, all-good, would desire to exercise it. The
population problem, which would take too long to fairly examine
in this debate, is pregnant with weighty arguments on this head .
Poverty exists ; and God's existence, or his power, or his wisdom,
or his goodness stands impeached by it. It would take many
evenings to debate this point fairly, but he does not go beyond
bare assertion, or advance one wcrd of argument about it. He
could not conceive how a good son could wish his father to live
for ever. If I understand the meaning of this aright — it would
be that all who wished their fathers tp live for ever must be bad

f

50

sons. (Hear and laughter.) He says, this life is a probation for
some other state. Which other ? What has he to sav except
that the present state is so terribly wicked, so full of ireacher/
and bloodshed and evil, that he is not heard to express a hop(^)
to make it better, but is obliged to go to some other world as an-
[. escape from this ? (Laughter and cheers.)

1 1 Mr. Cooper : So in spite of all I have said about the impropriety
||of it, the want of wisdom of the thing, the decency of doing it,
H; Mr. Bradlaugh commences again in the same manner. He must
If retract his compliment. He is utterly at a loss to account for the
I ! first speech; he passes on to say that he must chastise me. I
should say, that that was consummate impudence. Seeing that he
approved of the hisses, he must have great confidence in his powers
of eff'roDtery in conduct like this. (Cries of no, no, he told you to
be less excited) — and he turned round and told this person who
cheered me that he was wrong. (Cries of no, no). I did not say
the child had no moral faculty. I said he did not display that
faculty. He said that an imperfect man was hardly to be ex-
pected from an imperfect maker. If he could conceive God at all,
he must be a perfect God, and he could not wish any other God,
but if he saw anything bad, he would say that he was not com-
petent to be the framer of the UBiverse. I say there is only one
framer of the universe, God invisible, everywhere present,
all-wise, existent always, an almighty, all-holy being. He knows
that that all- wise and holy being cannot make a being as
perfect as himself. You might as well expect him to make a
triangular circumference. "AlUbeing,"he says, '*would be perfect.'*
Why waste time on words of this sort ? Our friend then said,
he would make it clear what he meant, when he said, there
was no sinning against conscience. Then he told me about
men having two wives in Tu/ key ; that men had no sense of mora-
lity, and that there were men in England who had two wives and
did not think it immoral. We think they do wrong. He says an
act which man cannot help committing is no sin. If I were
disposed to indulge in humour, I should exclaim, a Daniel come to
judgment. A man cannot commit a sin in doing what he cannot
help ; if it is no law to him, he cannot transgress the law. It is
no sin to commit an act. (Cries of question). I did not say that
'*^U men and women in England had the same standard of judging
of right and wrong. I said no to that, and I said the moral liaculty
had to be educated. Every faculty has to be educated. I was
not talking about the millions who suffer death through poverty.
'^ was talking of the millions that die naturally in an hour. There
vx such a thing as memory. I did not attribute evil to God because
He never limited or checked it. He talked of weak parents and
the injustice of punishment of sin. Do we not see reasons in the
organic punishment for moral crimes that man can bring disease

51

on his children and on himself? Yon say why does God do that?
Does not vice visit itself ? What do you do with that fact? You
say you cannot take a fact out of the world. Well, it is there.
God says that sin is sinful, that it is abominable in his sight, it is
unholy ; he gives it strong punishment here and everywhere. If
man will not regard himself, he may as regards his children.
Give me an idea whether or not there can be any moral government
where there is no freedom, no will, no possibility of transgression.
Show me that. I cannot understand it. I understand moral
government to mean a government of moral agents by a moral
governor. Moral government means that there are laws to observe,
he must have special rules, that is, the governed must know he
has a covernment, that is to say, there must be law. What is the
sanction of I aw? — punishment. Abolish punishment, and you
abolibh law virtually. Just conceive that the Queen abolished
all punishment for crime. Let recognised justice go on. Well,
there is a trial to-night, there is the judge in his scarlet robes, the
barristers in their wigs and gowns, the jury in the jury box. It
is a murderer that is to be tried. He is convicted — what follows ?
The judge puts on his black cap, and sentences the murderer to
death. The keeper then lets him go into the street. A robber is
sentenced to ten years, or twenty perhaps ; he rushes out of the
box and joins his companions in the streets. Then at nisi prius^
it is a horse case, lying seems inseparable from a horse case.
Throughout the whole case there is lying, sticking to your false-
hood throughout. You are convicted of perjury, and there is no
punishment. How long will this go on ? There is law then, and
there is a penalty which is the sanction of law. Then there is a
governor, good government if there is a law, and if you abolish
law you abolish government. For God to permit suffering and
wrong is not for him to will or to wish it. I may permit several
things, I do not will them. The father does, the mother does,
the wife does — in all relations of life we often permit that which
we do not will in the active sense. If we come to the philosophic
nature of things, yes; and in the broad sense of language wo
permit many things that we do not will. So it is from the moment
that life commences, and for ever. Mr. Bradlaugh knew very
well what I meant. (Cheers.) Why do you clap your hands at my
saying this ? Is it a dignified way to come here ? I expected to
have something like reasonable discussion, and I have to complain
that the argument was never touched. (Hear, dissent, and cries of
**not by you.'') If any one of you will tell me where the argu-
ment was touched, I will be much obliged to him. (Cheers and
hisses.) What is the use of encouraging all this vulgar stuff?
(Hisses.) It is not like reasonable men that want to come to the
truth. There was something that Mr. Bradlaugh said before, that
I meant to touch upon, but had not time. He said, that from the

^ 52

Atheist's stand-point, Tice should not be pnnished or virtue
rewarded. Pimishment was only to be inflicted so far as it is
preventive. It is to be remediaj. May it not be so when he
visits the sin of the parents upon the children ? Is there not 3
■warning ? But then we are told that vice works its own punish-
ment and virtue its own reward. Why then complain of Louis
Napoleon ? Should he not be punished according to that theory ?
I cannot see that vice works its own punishment there. I love
Mazzini with all my heart. He is the greatest man I have ever
known in my life. Is virtue rewarded in his mournful life ?
Tyrants on thrones and clergy to help them ! What does Louis
Napoleon care about clergy? — he makes instruments of them. He
does not believe them any more than did the first Napoleon.
There was also some observation in a former speech about the
ignorant being oftener on their knees than on their feet. The
Kaffirs and the lowest races in the world. But that is not in
the ror?nd of ray reasoning even if it were true.

Mr. Bradlaugh : Our friend puts it that he did not say the
child had no moral faculty, but he said the child did not display
it. I am sorry I misunderstood him. I will wait for the present
till the report comes out, but I fancy that my comment upon the
old man as upon the child did not misapply. How do you know
that the child has got this faculty before it is manifested ? By
what fact do you discover what is not displayed ? You certainly
have not displayed that faculty of putting things clear, or you
"would have tried —

Mr. Cooper : That is your impudence.

Mr. Bradlaugh: — Tried to give us some reasons for
supposing that a child has what you call the faculty for judging
"what you call right and wrong, and yet having this faculty dis-
plays it not. You said that God cannot make another being as
perfect as himself, because you say he is infinite — and he cannot
make another infinite. If that is a fair argument, it destroys
the doctrine of creation altogether. If God cannot create another
infinite, neither can he add to his own infinity. To add a finite
universe to infinity is equally as absurd as to add an infinite.
If God's ability to create a being as perfect as himself is limited,
then he is not omnipotent. If he is omnipotent, there can be no
such limitation. You say that sin is a transgression of law ;
law has two meanings, one scientific as expressing invariable
sequence, and the other moral, as command. You cannot trans-
gress the one and the other ; you can the right or duty to dis-
obey ; command depends upon who gives the command — with
■what sanction it is given — whether it be good or bad to obey or
not to obey. There are many statute laws at the present time
which it is perfect virtue to break, and no sin to disobey.

Mr. Cooper : That won't do.

53

Mr. Bradlaugh : Then my friend says vice visits itself on
childreu, aud asks, Hi)W does the Atheist deal with that ? He
finding, whether there be a God or not, a moral governor or not,
that children begotten of diseased parents are born in a diseased
state ; strives to educate the parents to observe physical laws —
to know the sequences on which health depends, and to carry
out this law so as to ensure health as the result of the physical
law. As an Atheist, he knows that where there is a child bom
into the world and the conditions of health have been known
and observed by its parents, the child is more healthy, whether
there be a Gud or not. You say that laoral government in»plies
that there are special rules established by the moral governor.
If a man break these rules unconsciously, is there a penalty?
My friend contends, as I understand him, that those who sin not
knowing the law, escape the penalty. The rules of Gi>d — do all
know them ? Yes or no. If all do not know them, what
becomes of this special government ? Some are ignorant. Again,
is God able to make all know them ? If yes, and he only teaches
partially, he is u'jjust, for He requires from one a higher duty
than from another. You say there is a difFereuce beiwee n per-
mitting error and willing it. The illustration of the lather or
mother permitting without willing has no anaio^»y. No argument
founded on man can conduct you to a demoristrariou for the
character of Deity. If your assertion (tf God's will as infinite
be true, there is no permission without his will, and the will of
any other cannot be in opposition, because he is omnipotent. If
ail things be from God, is it not a fair query how aught can exist
except by God's will? He says the good are to live for ever :did
he say where or how ? Is it to be in the moon for ever, or in the sun
for ever, or where ? My friend simply appealed to your prejsidices,
the prejudices created by your religious education, when he spnke
this. He knew that he meacit nothing by it— he did not know any-
thing about living for ever anywhere. AVtien he says that his
moral nature kails him to hope that when he finds that this life
is imperfect — that God is able to make another, which he hope^j
"will be better, but he don't know how it is ta be, wtiere it is to
be, or indeed whether it is to be at all, he has not given us a par-
ticle of information about it. Now, however, he finds it coa-
' venient, having said that he was going to take tie bro id view of
\ the question, to take you abroad altogether — and he desires to
7 take you into the next world, which he would h ive you examine
• in preference to the subject, but we hdve not that before us, but
I to judge of his Deity as moral governor. He could not have been
more unfortunate than when he went to the Kiffirs in his speech,
who have no knowledj^e of this moral goveriini-nt which he sets
up. There are the Ktffirs, the Dyaks of ligih Brook, and
many other nations of the world, who have no cuncept/on of a

54

future state of existence, who have no conception of God as sepa-
rate, apart, and distinct from the universe, and who, therefore,
they do not pray to. He has used such a defence to-night as
will rather defeat his argument for the existence of God. It is
either good or bad that men should know of God's existence*
If it was good, then God should give all men that knowledije ; if
he did not, he himself was not all good — that is, was not God. I
admit that my friend is right when he says I did not hit his argu-
ment. I tried as hard as I was able, but it is hard to hit nothing.
(Cheers.) Why blame L<)uis Napoleon, and praise Mazzni ? I
complain of him whom I hold to be a scoundrel, because I hope
to make the rest of the world avoid his vices — and because I
dare to wake up a nation to a desire for liberty, whom God lets
sleep in political slavery. Mazzini, whom I love and honour as
much as you can — whose truth I have learned to revere as much
as you have learned to revere it — when you ask me what reward
this man has, I say that his reward is in his own honour, in his
honest truthfulness, in the love for humanity he expresses, which
makes thousands love him. He has no fears such as possess that
man, that vagabond of the Tuiieries, with his hand against
every man ; but this exile, almost prisoner, this recluse, this man
shut out from the world, his life of truth gives me the highest
hope, for he gains and gives S3^mpathy forth to the world and to
the noblest in the world. You tell me of your God. Why does he
allow one to be hunted by police, and keep the other ui a posi-
tion to drive 'Eiirope before him with the ed'^e of his sword?
Why does God permit the armies of this crovvned so »undrel of
France to protect those Roman bandits, who keep daily open the
bloody wounds of wretched Italy ? I did not brin;^ Napoleoa
or M^zzmi into the debate, but if you want an argument a.^ainst
God's moral government, take that sink of vice and crime, Rome,
the birthplace of your Christian faith, and i^ou»ce of all your
Christian frauds ; Rome, the cancer in the womb of Italian liberty.
You shall have my sympathv with liberty and truth wherever
needed, bat we rather forget in this the subject for debate. We
come here to discuss one theme which our friend has entirely
neglected. We ou^ht to have some evidence ot G )d's moral
government of the world. So far as our frien 1 is concerned,
every theme has been selected but this, and exct-pt reading Irom
his memorandum book the pencil not^s which he lias made,
my argujnent he has met by simply saymg rhit *' he cannot
understand." He cannot understand the meanin^^s of ?he words
be uses hmiself, any more than the argum-nc which he heard
used a;^ain>t liim. And he tells you of my weakness and
my impudence, but each man has the rigtit to siy h s b.st in his
own wa}'. Ai»e carries with it no respect h^^ie. other thun it
Warrants by matured thought. Mr. Cooper's pa a scivioe carries

55

with it no respect here, unless he continues it by present duty.*
The speech which mui^t not provoke laughter is sober aud earnesfe
utterance, and the service which finds respect is sterling honest
work. Let our friend rely not on the past, not on old certificates
of respect, but on the services he performs now, in bringing truth
before you, speaking to your hearts aud educating your brains,
developing your intellects, and enlarging your humanity. When
he does this he will have done something entitling him to reproach
you if you fail in respect, and he will save himself the need of
reproaching yon at ail, for he will win, as I do now, your warmest
sympathy. (Loud Cheers.)

Mr Cooper: I go on to follow the plan which I suppose to
be the ri^hv one. He claims to do the same thing. I thiok this
the right plan to take up every sentence uttered, and to show
that they are not to the point, that they are instead, great non-
sense, and don't bear on the argument, and are simply false con-
clusions. I suppose that to be my plain duty. I come here to
argue for the being of God as moral governor of the universe ;
Mr. Bradlaugh comes here to argue that there is no moral govern-
ment. I spoke of children having a faculty. He asks how I know
that children have a faculty? I say by watching its develop-
ment. He says sin is not transgression of the law, for law con-
sists of command and sequence. What has that to do with the
position ? I know that law is command, and there is sequence,
which is punishment, if you do not obey. But how does that
overthrow the truth of sin being a transgression of the law ? If
children are born without a faculty, how come they to ever dis-
cern whether there is a God or not ? Indeed, that is the question
between us — whether there is a God or not. Do not all men
know God's laws? If he says we see this inequality of punish-
ment, he would ask what is God about ? I say that all human
beings know more or less of God's law. He says that of some,
mv.re than others, God requires duty without reason. I say no:
where precept has not been given to man, God does not expect
him to iuifil. There is no teaching of any sort that I am aware
of against this. I never learned among any class of persons any
other belief in God, but that he dealt with all al ke. In that
sense, there was no such inconsistency of philosophy. But Mr.
Bradlaugh said I was not to talk of myseif. When I was talking
cf perniission, I did not mean instigation. I did not rreau any
such thing as ** to will it." I was not also to talk of analogy
between men'^ nature and God's, between the intelligence of man
and that of God. I say again that permission does not mean
instigation. He says it does. I say it don't. He said something
about *' living forever." Why does he affect not to know "what
every one else knew, why affect to be so stupid ? " How
did I krow that there was an hereafter ?" Because life is not so

56

perfect as my moral nature. I call will choice, and my moral
nature is so strong on these points that I am obliged to attend to
them. All men are aware of this hereafter, and their conscience
in regard to it troubles all. But then he says, *' Where is this
future life to be? Is it to be here or elsewhere?" T am not
anxious about that ; I know that the judge of all the earth will da
right. I am sure that the God who made me will do right ; I
am, therefore, not anxious. I am sure that it will be right. I
cannot speak to what will be appointed to me. I may particu-
larly call your attention to the strange remark made by Mr.
Bra'dlaugh, when he instanced what he called a fact, that the
Kaffirs had no hope of a future state, and that all ignorant peo-
ple are oftener on their knees than on their feet. He says he has
proved such a deficiency as will overthrow my argument for
God's existence. I showed that man is forgetful, and he says
that overthrows my argument. I said that the argument had
not been met, and he said he had nothing to meet. Here are
those representative men on this platform. Is the argument to
be dismissed in this manner? Is that to go forth from this plat-
form as an argument ? And then what he says about the glass
beiug of the same existence as that of maa. (Cries of no no.)
I cannot help being surprise! at all this gibberi>h. (Cries of
question, hisses, and cheers.) Why, you are not fit to listen to the
question. (Elisses, and some confusion.) I am appealing to
representaMve men What is the use of argument, if this is argu-
ment ? He treats the question as he likes. He tells us that he
had a mission, and he said that all precognition was an utter
absurdity. But the argument of the moral sense was the 'greatest
argument tha*" could be brought for the existence of a moral
government. It has convinced others, and it has convinced me.
That was the way in which such men as Ctark and G llespie, to
whom Mr. Bradlaugh referred, airived at the knowledge of moral
governance. He said *'thatl said what I said before whs there,
only that it was not there/* But if these great m«^n held those
doctrines which I delend, if thousands of other great men have
held them ; if these arguments have pa^^sed through rhe stroni^est
minds of Efiglishmen, men who have done such mitihry thinus in
mathematics, men of such disciplined intellect, that there is a G'>d
as maker and moral governor of the universe, I am compelled
to remind him that the argument w^s neither touched nor
an'-wered, and that all this ** fllbertigibbet '* is not argnm-nt. Is
this to be the close? Can you offer no further argmnent? Are
you who assemble here to accept that as argument ? Will you try
to argue the question out or — (Cries of hear and his-e*> ) Thank you
for nothing. He complains of tl^.e order of moral uovemment, and he
talks of L .uis Napoleon as having been success'ui wh'le Mtzz ni is
hunttd by police, and he says the reasou he does so is to rouse the

57

nation. It is a queer nation that — when one reflects on its meanness,,
its littleness, its iickspittleness, one feels contempt instead of admi-
ration for a French man at this time of day. (Cheers and hisses, which
lasted for some seconds). Sliow me any six men whom you talk
about — you may tell me that I am talking of the body of French-
men in the streets of Paris, but I say that they are unworthy as a
nation to enjoy liberty. But in reply to my question, how is
Mazzini rewarded ? You say by his own sense of honour and truth.
"Why do you then say that he is neglected ? What is there to
complaiu of that things were not right ? Why, accordinjjj to this,
it is right aiter all. But no, says my friend, it is not right. My
friend blows hot and cold at the same time. Either the con-
science of such men is guilty, and that things are not right in this
world, or they are. Which will he have ? H^s has chosen to
take the latter conclusion with respect to these two cases. Why
do such things exist, but because there is a moral government and
we are moral agents ? Then he talks of Rome, or rather he says,
" We can talk about Rome." That is not my religion, that is not
where I am. I always hated her for her bigotry and her tyrannies,
and if I were a Roman Catholic and wished to put down Free-
thou:ht, I should perhaps have to arrest you first. Bat that is
not my religion. I do not come from Rome. He then complains
of my reading notes. Bat please come to this fact, that you have
a conscience. I say you know it, and that you cannot conceal the
fact from yourselves, that when you do wrong there is an inward
chiding ; you cannot shake it off. How came you to hive it there?
and for the future if there is no moral government, all will sooa
be over. "Men reasoned," and we are toll further, that all
sensible men laughed at the notion of iminortality I profe-sed.
But he was sure that he would enj )y this world and everything
that he could have in it as well, whether there wa>j no future, and
he referred to broad history But whatever he may sny, I say yoa
sin against conscience, and you are rebuked by your moral sense.
Oh but he says '* There is no such thmg." I say there is, that if
you do harm to your wife and children, or to your neighbour; if
you commit dshonesty, you know that; you blame yoursell — the
faculty, the moral faculty blames you. How could yon have it if
there were no accountability — no moral jrovernment? How comes
it there ? It has not been esteemed so very ridiculous by some of
the greatest men that ever lived. It was said that when argu-
ments would not convifice Pascal, the moral feeling did. It is oa
record of Emmanuel Kant, the great German philosopher, that
when the design argument, and the argument a priori UWtd to
convince him, the moral sentiment convinced him. It was the
testimony of Liebig that he v^as convinced by the moral agnraent
"when nothing else could convince him. ** I feel this moral power
'within me,*' he said ; '^ I cannot destroy it, I cauujot see it, it

58

impels me, it controls me, it blames me. Why is it so, if this he
the be-all and end-all, and there is no moral government ?"
(Hear, and cheers.)

Mr. Bradlaugh: It is not true that it convinced Locke,
Newton, or Samuel Clarke, They take lines of argument opposed
to each other. The illustration is not a fair one, any more than
the quotation from Plato was a correct one. I am surprised at
Mr. Cooper's lamentable blunder as to laws, as denoting in-
variable sequence, telling me that law means command, and that
the sequence follows the breach as punishment. Now, with fifty-
nine years of experience, to make such a sad blunder when his
distinction of law. as command and law as sequence were put before
you in my speech, is at least most extraordinary. I cannot believe
that he has been serious. He surely cannot be so ignorant of the
commonest terms with which thinkers deal ; or, if he is so igno-
rant, I am justified in standing up in this debate and saying that
he has no right to discuss these subjects at all. If he does not
understand the argument, if he does not understand the meaning
of words, then I say that he is unfit to argue ; and if he does un-
derstand them, his speech is worse than worthless, because wil-
fully evasive.

Mb. Cooper : I do not know what you are referring to.

Mr Bradlaugh: I will do him the justice to say that he did
not, in his last speech, refer to the subject we have met to discuss.
I think I will also do him the justice to say that it was the strangest
and most incoherent speech I ever heard, and I am free to add
that in his attempts to demonstrate Deity he has broken down
lamentably. (Hear, and cDeers.)

Mr. Cooper rose, and was understood to say that this was
downright impudence,

Mr. Bradlaugh : I did not interrupt when he was talking
about gib erish. I have a right to comment on his speech in my
own way — in the way that seems to me best. I asked him how
he knew that the moral faculty existed in children. He says by
watching its development. He took no pains to tell you what
he meant. I will try to do so. The basis for this so-called
faculty is organisation, differing in each individual — that organi-
sation is educated, and this education a.'so varies with each.
Therefore this so-calltd faculty is ultimately resultant from
development of organisation. That basis must be limited and
varied. It varies perceptibly in diflferent races of mankind.
There is a different devel(»pment to each individual, and this
education of organisation helps to make up what we call con-
science, this conscience varying in its exercise in different
spheres, and by different individuals. Faculty I say it is not,
it is only a condition, the result of all these circum^taiices, but
is never independent of ihem. This alleged moral laculty never

59

existed without these, either ia children, men, or women, at any
age. Then our friend said that all human beings kuew more or
less of God's laws — some knew more, he says, some knew less.
Well, if that is so, if some had abundance, and some were deficient,
then God has been unkind either to them to whom he has given
but little knowledge, or to those to whom he has given much.
The knowledtre of God's laws must be either good or bad. If it
is good for all to have a complete knowledge, then there is in-
justice in giving to some more, to some less: if it is bad to have
the knowledge, then there is injustice in giving it to any, la
either case you have an argument against the moral governmont.
Then our friend goes on to say, "The future does not trouble
me/* He knows what kind of service will be allotted to him by
God or by any one competent to make the allotment. I can tell
him one kind of service which will certainly not be allotted to
him, and that is, the task of proving that there is a God — or the
moral character of his government. (Cheers.) That duty will
never more be allotted to him. (Cheers.) Our friend was good
enough to tell us that it was the strongest effort of his mind this
demonstration of moral sense, and that he had made it so clear
that there was hardly any use in his arguing the question with
me about it. I will wait till the report shall be in print — that
will speak for itself. I did not refer to last night till he took the
opportunity of introducing it, I would not have brought it
forward because there remained no point needing comment. I
can well conceive a man lamenting during the day over a defeat,
and trying a^ain to-night to talk it into a semblance of victory.
You referred to Mazzini, and asked why I complained. You s?iy —
*' Oh, but it is right or it is wrong." Why use this term ri^^ht v.r
wrong ? If you use them, the one as cooducins: to happiness,
the other as producing a state of pain, I can unde'stand what you
mean. It is a state of happiness for a man to work for good — to
work for truth — the development of truth amongst his fellows ;
he finds happiness in so doing. But it is a source of pain to him
to know there is so much evil yet to be undone. You can believe
the man more happy who does right than he who commits a
wrong, and this whether there be a God or not. But God, my
friend says, is all-g;ood — that which results from hini is ther^:-
fore all -good — it must b^ all good, as no evil can come from an in-
finite God. Atheism is in the world, and it mu-^t come from some
source, as out of notiiing nothing can come. God is the source
of all, it must therefore come from G )d, therefore Atheism is
from G'^d ; but God is good, therefore Atheism is good. And m w
for the French. They are a queer nation, says our friend He
fcas been told so perhaps, but those who have been among them
think otherwise. Queer they are, hut the men who are most
queer amongst them are the men who are most under the domi-

60

nance of theology, and least under the influence of Freethought.
I have found that men who are least urnier the infl-ieuce of the
priest are the men who huve been best d'sp'^v'^-ed to bring about a
better state of things for their country. These are not tlie men
you speak of in such unwarrantable iauguage. There are men who
beod before the rising sun, who bow before the crown, but these
are not the men developed by thought and truth. There are men
who have been mi«developed by the mivSgovernment ot kings and
priests ordained by God, who left them without moral thought,
and destitute of manhood. Those men whom you call lick-
spittles— men in Pans, men at Lyons, men at Bourdeaux, in the
North and in the South — are men speaking for their country, men
"working for liberty, hoping to attain it for their own country and
for others. Men are now striving for liberty a^ain in France,
(Cheers.) Then you come to Rome. Is that so far from your
religion that you can afford to attack it ? Rotten branch, you do
•well to shun the stem from which you spring (L»>ud cheering.)
Matricidal son, you do nobly to plant the dagger of calumny in
the breast of the mother church which bore you How well
pleased her son should be to cover her with odium; but where
Would be your chufch without its early gospel forgeries— where
your Christian establishments, your bishoprics, your evidences,
your prisons, your revenues, all things that go to make up your
faith, it ihey had not been treasured up, garnished, turbished in
Rome ? You say you are not Roman Catholic, and that Roman
Catholics will burn men — so will Protestants. Protestants have
burned Roman Catholics. There is a place not so far aa
Caffrara, there is Newgate, where Protestant Christian noble-
men piled up stones on men of the Romish faith until the blood
gusheil from their forehead and finger-ends because they would not
plead before judges who had pre-determined to condemn them.
You tell me you do not — I answer, you do not, because you dare
not do such things now. It is within the brief span of your own
lifetime, when you were but little older than I am now, that
dissenting clergymen sentenced Richard Ca:lile and Robert
Taylor to Oakham, Giltspur Street, and Newfjat-, and harassed
Carlile's family with starvation for holding such opinions I now
hold. (Loud cheers.) You could not do all this to-day, because
the stream of human thought is rushing onward, and would
dro^^n your fires if you dared kindle them. You are only losing
, time in advocating the past, because new thought is more power-
; ful than old faith — it has trampled out your faggots. Make not
'j a boast over Roman Catholics, both fruit of one tree — rotten fruit
I admit ; both are laden with poison, both have given to the
world a heritage — slavery, tyrants, and chains. It is left for th©
republic of human intellect to erect a better state of things.
(Loud and protracted cheering.)

61

Mr. Cooper : I am returning to the affirmation with which he
flets out. He says that Locke, Newton, and Clark oppose each
other upon this question. I say they don't. He said whit I
quoted from Plato is not in Plato. I say it is. What use in
trying to persuade people that I do not understand my own
argument ? I said I did not understand what Bradlau<;h said
about command and sequence. He knew he siid that I did not
understand my own argument. He asked me how did I know
that men in this world in various nations and situations had
more or less knowledge of God's law ? I said I knew it by their
acts, and then he said it was unkind that God did not reveal to them
the law. He could not ; and only when this great moral world
should be destroyed, would there be justice done. If men
transgressed the law, says Mr. Bradlaugh, they should not be
punished for it in this state, he will have no doubt about it in the
next state. So my friend will argue that the virtuous are more
happy even in this world, and yet nothing is right. Can you
understand this reasoning ? He asked me not to blow hot and
cold. It is the most stupid talk I ever heard in the world. He
first tells me that it is right, and then that it is wrong. I cannot
understand all this- The men in France and the priests are so
and so. Yes. Why? Because they bowed to the dominance of
the priests, and not because of theology in general I have it on
the testimony of a gentleman who went to live in a house in
Bordeaux to commence an undertaking as aa agriculturist. He
commenced by giving some books to the peasantry on his estate.
They bowed as they received them, and appeared thankful. In
three days, however, they came back to him, and politely re-
quested that they might see the governor of the farm. The Pere
[Mr. Cooper pronounced this word with accent on the last syllable,
a circumstance which caused some laughter and surprise, which
it is necessary to explain, that a portion of the following speech of
Mr. Bradlaugh's may be understood.] The Pere was a priest in
the village, who, he said, told him that they did not read such
books because of their religion, and they very seldom made acquain-
tance with anything beside theology. The great mass of them
bow to the domination of the priest ; and so these lickspittles
exist in France, and are, according to my friend, made under God's
moral government. Has he shown that any other government
■will account for the various arguments that have been adduced?
As this is the last time I shall address you, I will simply appeal
to your consciences again. You have a conscience, every man
has a conscience, to which he is responsible in the first instance.
You need not smile — it will not be a smiling matter if, on your
death-bed, your conscience tells you that I am right and that you
are wrong. We will all have to meet it. Every one of us. I
have talked before of death-beds, and there was no indisposition

62

to listen to me then. If morality is not taught in this room now,
it ought to be. It used to be. You have a conscience which has
dictates, and which, if you do not obey it, flogs you. If you vio-
late conscience, on your death-bed it will not be a happy one.
You say there is no future. You may contrive to aliay the
gnawings of conscience in some degree — you will not kill them*
They will be there up to the last. You had better listen to con-
science before it is too late. The more you ponder on this fact,
the more you will begin to see that there is a moral natuie, and
the more clearly you will apprehend that there must be a moral
governor. I wish I had pondered more on this fact in my early
life. It began with that point of government — it began in John
Street in a discussion upon one of Mr. Owen's propositions, that
man is the creature of circumstances. He was laughed at when
he said there was no praise or blame. In the controversy, I
began to blame myself and praise others. Why, I began to ask,
do you praise such men as Louis Blanc, Mazzini, and Kossuth
when their name is mentioned, and execrate Louis Napoleon?
Praise and blame! We cannot help it. It is no use telling me
there is no such thing as sinning against conscience — there is
son^iethin^: which you cannot get rid of, which cannot be srot out of
the nnnd, which cannot be got out of the heart. You go about
with this conscience, with the certainty that it is there perpetually
— a tribunal within you. If you reflect on it, the more you will feel
convinced that moral government exists. I reflected, and I said,
what I have ever since maintained, that there exists a moral
government for man, whose head is the Governor and Creator of
tbe Universe. (Hear, hear.)

Mr Bradlaugh: It would be impossible to demonstrate to-
night that my remarks, in reference to Locke, Newton, and Samuel
Clark, were well founded. A quarter of an hour will not suffice
for that purpose. But I will take occasion to say something in
respect of what has been said to come from Plato. It is very
cuni vu-^ that, in the '^ Tiiiiasas *' which I hold in my hand, there is a
paj-sage precisely the opposite to that which my friend quoted,
and 1 have not been able to find any thing like the sentence he
quoted from Plato. What I do find is in opposition to w^hat he
has attributed to Plato. I take pains to be moderately correct
belore I challenge an assertion made in this way. (Mr. Cooper
here interrupted ) He tells me the passage is there, and when I
discover a passage having an opposite meaning, he aks me where
it is. You first quoted the passage which you say is in Plato, and
it is for you to point it out.

Mr. Cooper : I don't know what you are talking about.

Mr. Bradlaugh : You soon will know what I am talking
about it j'ou are indecent enough to continually interrupt. If
you do not begrudge me this last epeech, at least keep quiet. If

63

fifry-nine years have not tau2:ht you the advantage of imitating
younger mea by listening patiently to opposite opinions, such a
lesson may be taught you here to-night.

Mr. Cooper: Hold your impudence. (Loud cries of **Keep
your temper.")

Mr. Bradlaugh : With regard to the agricultural population,
that of England would be as little likely to preserve and read the*
works of Paine or of Cobbett, as were the agriculturists of the
South of France to read works that were not recognised by the
Koman Catholic Church. I submit that no greater illustration
in favour of my friend could be drawn from the conduct of the
agriculturists in France, than I could draw, on the contrary, from
the agriculturial population in this country, and even in the
counties of Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, where the people are
ignorant in the extreme, many of them in these enlightened days
being unable to read or write. They have plenty of clergymen-
take Harwich and for miles round, it is a place where you will find
an agricultural population as ignorant, as pious, and as poor as any
in England. Our friend again appealed to conscience, without
having devoted one thought to the way in which he accounted
for conscience. Never having permitted himself to explain one
of the points challenged by me, he talks about conscience as if it
had never been referred to in my speeches. Feeling that his posi-
tion was weak, and knowing that he had made nothing of it, he
comes to the old and oft-tried death-bed argument to frighten
those whom he cannot convince. (Cheers.) I ask you, will you
think yourselves the better men that you are frightened into this
conscience dogma, which you could not reasonably believe, and
which you are asked to accept from fear, though you rejected it whea
you said there was not evidence enough to convince you ? When
he thus deals with death beds, is it, does he think, to have some
effect on tbe conclusion of the debate? If he ?earch for death-
bed arguments, he may find enough for his own refutation. He
hfis app-raled to the cross, and 1 accept his challenge, and ask him
what were the dying words of Christ himself? 'My God! my
God ! why hast thou forsaken me ?" If he who claim-ed to be
God and man was so deserted in his dying moments, what hope
have you ? Better recommend salvation by your own manly
thought — your own efforts for the development of human hap-
piness. My friend says that morality used to be taught in this
loom wheu he was here, and implies that the reverse is now the
ca^e. What call you morality ? Is that a moral act which tends
to the greatest happiness of the greatest number according to the
knowledge of the actor? No other definition can you give. I
challen^ieall of you who stand before me whether in every lecture,
teaching, or preaching by me — if you wdi have it so, whether the
buitheu of my lecture has not been the inculcation of morality f

64

The Freethinkers have not fallen away from the cause of truth
and morality. When you presume to deal with myself and my
audience her , a« if we were schoolboys still and you teacher,
you should be prepared with solid instruction as justification for
your presumptioD, and when you wish men not to laugh at you,
you should have some reason better than your age — something
^more argumentative than impudence. You should, at least,
knr w belter what you are talking about. (Loud cries of question,
qnesTion, hear, hear, and cheers) When the construction of
terms is referred to, and you tell me more than twice that you do
not understand the difference between sequenc and command, Iain
obliged to tell you that you do not understand the commonest rudi-
menis of language, and are unfitted to conduct a grave discussion ;
and when } on say you *' never did say so and so," that you have a
short memory. I can only add that you are either unable to
argue at all, or you are disingenuously concealing what you know
would be fatal to your position. (Cheers.) There has not been,
I repeat, an attempt by you at logic or argument. How is it that
the friends whom I saw around Mr. Cooper last night have this
evening fled from his flag ? I saw la^t evening, and I was pleased to
eee sitting on that side, men of intellect, men of talent — equal to
the task of weighing the force of an argument addressed to them,
and knowing the exact value of words. How is it that they
were brought here to wait on victory, but have not returned here
to witness the fray, now the hope for victory has become defeat ?
Is it because there was not on the part of the Christian
advocate even the shadow of a pretence of having advanced any-
thing in favour of his side the question ? It is because they came
here seeking in me one who was, as you have declared, too igno-
rant to meet you, but notwithstanding I am now here to fulfil
my part, and show that even my ignorance transcends your
knowledge.

Mr Cooper : Is that argument ?

Mr Bradlaugh : I know it is not argument, but it is as good
argumej^t as '' gibberish ;" it is as good argument and quite as
forcible as the *' impudence," or that you did not come here to
m«et Charles Bradlaugh; that you are not to be answered because
you are fifty-nine years of age. It would have been better for both
of us to have discussed carefnlly, and to have reasoned together
step by step till we reached the heijiht of this great argument which
de!?erves great discussion ; but when an attempt is made to override
discussion, I am obliged to turn round, and to show the cause of such
hardiness which lies either in his utter inability or his desire to
avoid the question altogether. (Cheers). I leave the matter in your
hands. I admit that I am not the ablest or the fittest represen-
tative the Freethought party might have put forward. But
although I am not the best J have honestly upheld the principles

-of those who trusted their cause to me, and if I have failed, I
have failed in consequence of the weakness of th*» advocate; but
you, with the cause of God on your side, and boasting of your
.iijreat intellect, you thinking you had only a poor piece of igno-
rance to combat — I say you have only made a shadbw of a de-
fence. On your side has been all the pretence. I remember
when at the Wigan Hall, at the U. P. Kirk, Glasgow, at Man-
chester, and here you refused to meet me. (Loud cries of question,
question, cheers, and hisses) Why, there is not a 5<hred of the
question left. (Great cheering.) I say again it was in the public
Hall at Wigan, it was in the U. P. Kirk, Glasgow, in this Hall of
Science, in the chapel at Manchester, that you told me I was too
ignorant to be met, that 1 could not understand the meaning of
words. We have to-night an illustration of your learning when,
in the language most commonly spoken througliout Europe and
the world, we hear the word pere (father) pronounced pary
(laughter), proving the extent of your erudition. It would
have been improper for me to deal with this stupid blunder if he
had not been used to boast of the acquisition of fourteen lan-
guages, and summoned the world as scholars to hear his champion
lectures. Are you then the Christian who placards the walls of
cities professing to meet all Freethinkers in England with a view
to convert their doubts ? Are joxxpar excellence the person who
has read every book carefully to find evidence and argument for
the existence of God, who claim to be teacher and preacher of
Christian doctrine, bridging over centuries of history with irre-
fragable evidences ? It is to be hoped that when it is necessary
to find a champion for the tottering orthodoxy and an argument
in favour of a blind belief, some abler representative will be found
by the Christian body to whom to trust the marshalling of its
forces for another defeat.

Mr. Bradlaugh sat down amidst loud cheering, which was re-
newed again and again. This concluded the discussion, and a
formal vote of thanks haying been passed to the chairman, the
meeting separated.

APPENDIX.

A PLEA FOR ATHEISM.

Gillespie says that ''an Atheist propagandist seems a non«
descript monster created by nature in a moment of mad-
ness." Despite this opinion, it is as the propagandist of
Atheism that I pen the following lines, in the hope that I
may succeed in removing some few of the many prejudices
which have been created against not only the actual holders
of Atheistic opinions, but also against those wrongfully sus-
pected of entertaining such ideas. Men who have been
famous for depth of thought, for excellent wit, or great
genius, have been recklessly assailed as Atheists, by those
who lacked the high qualifications against which the spleen
of the calumniators was directed. Thus, not only has
Voltaire been without ground accused of Atheism, but
Bacon, Locke, and Bishop Berkeley himself, have, amongst
others, been denounced by thoughtless or unscrupulous
pietists as inclining to Atheism, the ground for the accusa-
tion being that they manifested an inclination to improve
human thought.

It is too often the fashion with persons of pious reputation
to speak in unmeasured language of Atheism as favouring
immorality, and of Atheists as men whose conduct is neces-
sarily vicious, and who have adopted atheistic views as a
desperate defiance against a Deity justly offended by the
badness of their lives. Such persons urge that amongst
the proximate causes of Atheism are vicious training, im-
moral and profligate companions, licentious living, and the
like. Dr. John Pye Smith, in his " Instructions on Chris-
tian Theology/' goes so far as to declare that *^ nearly all
the Atheists upon record have been men of extremely
debauched and vile conduct." Such language from the
Christian advocate is not surprising, but there are others
who, professing great desire i '=r the spread of Freethought,

1 A PLEA FOR atheism:.

and with pretensions to rank amongst acute and liberal
tbinkers, declare Atheism impracticable, and its teacbings
cold, barren, and negative. In this brief essay I shall
except to each of the above allegations, and shall en-
deavour to demonstrate that Atheism affords greater possi-
bility for human happiness than any system yet based on
Theism, or possible to be founded thereon, and that the
lives of true Atheists must be more virtuous, because more
human, than those of the believers in Deity, the humanity
of the devout believer often finding itself neutralised by
a faith with which it is necessarily in constant collision.
The devotee piling the faggots at the auto da fe of an
heretic, and that heretic his son, might, notwithstanding, be
a good father in every respect but this. Heresy, in the
eyes of the believer, is highest criminality, and outweighs
all claims of family or affection.

Atheism, properly understood, is in nowise a cold,
barren negative; it is, on the contrary, a hearty, fruitful
affirmation of all truth, and involves the positive assertion,
and action of highest humanity.

Let Atheism be fairly examined, and neither condemned
— its defence unheard — on the ex parte slanders of the pro-
fessional preachers of fashionable orthodoxy, whose courage
is bold enough while the pulpit protects the sermon, but
whose valour becomes tempered with discretion when a free
platform is afforded and discussion claimed ; nor misjudged
because it has been the custom to regard Atheism as so
unpopular as to render its advocacy impolitic. The best
policy against all prejudice is to assert firmly the verity.
The Atheist does not say " There is no God^" but he saySj^^
<^ I know not w"^?' yo¥'*mean By ffodT;"" ram without idea
of God; the woH ^ God ' irttriff conveying no

clear or distinct affirmation. I do not deny God, because
I cannot deny that of which I have no conception, and the
conception of which, by its affirmer, is so imperfect that
he is unable to define it to me.*' If you speak to the*
Atheist of God as creator, he answers that the conception
of creation is impossible. We are utterly unable to construe
it in thought as possible that the complement of existence has
been either increased or diminished, much less can we con-
ceive an absolute origination of substance. We cannot con-
ceive either, on the one hand, nothing becoming something,

A PLEA FOR ATHEISM,

or on ihe oth^r, J^ome thing becoming nothing. The Theisfc
who speaks of God creating the universe, must either sup- tj
pose that Deity evolved it out of himself, or that he pro- jj
duced it from nothing. But the Theist cannot regard the J
universe as evolution of Deity, because this would identify
Universe fuul Deify, and be Pantheism rather than Theism^
There would be no distinction of substance — in fact no crea-
tioq. JNor can the Theist regard the universe as created
out of nothing, because Deity is, according to him, necessa-
rily eternal and infinite. His existence being eternal and
infinite, precludes the possibility of the conception of
vacuum to be filled by the universe if created. No one can
even think of any point of existence in extent or duration
and say, here is the point of separation between the creator
and the created. Indeed, it is not possible for the Theist to
imagine a beginning to the universe. It is not possible to
conceive either an absolute commencement, or an absolute
termination of e:^istence ; that is, it is impossible to con-'
eeive beginning before which you have a period when th&
universe has yet to be ; or to conceive an end, after wbick
the universe, having been, no longer exists. It is impos-
sible in thoiight to originate or annihilate the universe-^
The Atheist affirms that he cognises to-day effects, that
these are at th^ same time causes and effects — Causes to ther
effects they precede, effects to the causes they follow.
Cause is simply everything without which the efi'ect would
not result, and with which it must result. Cause is the
means to an end, consummating itself in that end. Tha
Theist who argues for creation must assert a point of time^
that is, of duration, when the created did not yet exist. At
this point of time either something existed or nothing;-
but something must have existed, for out of nothing no-,
thing can come. Something must have existed, because the,
point fixed upon is that of the duration of something.
This something must have been either finite or infinite j
if finite, it could not have been God, and if the something
were infinite, then creation was impossible, as it is impos-
sible to add to infinite existence.

If you leave the question of creation and deal with th^
government of the universe, the difficulties of Theism are
by no means lessened. The existence of evil is then a
terrible stumbling-block to the Theist. Pain, misery.

A PLEA FOR ATHEISM,

■-^rime, povef ty, confront the advocate of eternal goodness,
and challenge with unanswerable potency his declaration of
Deity as all-good, all- wise, and all-powerful. Evil is either
caused by God, or exists independently ; but it cannot be
caused by God, as in that case he would not be all-good ;<
nor can it exist independently, as in that case he would nofe
be all-powerful. Evil must either have had a beginnings
or it must be eternal ; but, according to the Theist, it can-
not be eternal, because God alone is eternal. Nor can it
have had a beginning, for if it had it must either have ori-
ginated in God, or outside God; but, according to the
Theist, it cannot have originated in God, for he is all-good,
and out of all-goodness evil cannot originate ; nor can evil
have originated outside God, for, according to the Theist,
God is infinite, and it is impossible to go outside of or
beyond infinity.

To the Atheist this question of evil assumes an entirely
different aspect. He declares that eyil is a result, but not
a result from God or Devil. He affirms that by conduct
founded on knowledge of the laws of existence it is possible
to arneliorate and avoid present eYij* and, as our knowledge
increases, to prevent its future recurrence.

Some declare that the belief in God is necessary as a check
to crime. They allege that the Atheist may commit murder,
lie, or steal without fear of any consequences. To try the
actual value of this argument, it is not unfair to ask — Do
Theists ever steal? If yes, then in each such theft, the
belief in God and his power to punish has been inefficient
as a preventive of the crime. Do Theists ever lie or mur-
der ? If yes, the same remark has further force — hell-fire fail-
ing against the lesser as against the greater crime. The
fact is that those who use such an argument overlook a great
truth— e.e,, that all men seek happiness, though in very
diverse fashions. Ignorant and miseducated men often mis-
take the true path to happiness, and commit crime in the
endeavour to obtain it. Atheists hold that by teaching
mankind the real road to human happiness, it is possible to_
keep them^from the by-ways of criminality and error,
''Stheists would teach men to be moral now, not because God
"offers as an inducement reward by and by, but because in
"the virtuous act Hs_eLf immediate good is ensured to the doer
and the circle surrounding him. Atheism would preserve

A PLEA FOR ATHEISBl.

man from lying, stealing, murdering now, not from fear of
an eternal agony after death, but because these crimes make
this life itself a course of misery.

While Theism, asserting God as the creator and governor
of the universe, hinders and checks man's efforts by de-
claring God's will to be the sole directing and controlling
power. Atheism, by declaring all events to be in accordance
with natur'at Taws — that is, happening in certain ascertain-
able sequences— stimulates man to discover the best condi-
tions of life, and offers him the most powerful inducements
to morality. While the Theist provides future happi-
ness for a scoundrel repentant on his death-bed, Athieigm
affirms present and certain happiness for the man who does
his best to live here so well as to have little cause for re-
pentmg hereafter.

Theism declares that God dispenses health and inflicts
disease, and sickness and illness are regarded by the Theist
as visitations from an angered Deity, to be borne with meek-
ness and content. Atheism declares that physiological
knowledge may preserve us from disease by preventing our
infringing the law of health, and that sickness results not
as the ordinance of offended Deity, but from ill-ventilated
dwellings and workshops, bad and insufficient food, exces-
sive toil, mental suffering, exposure to inclement weather,
and the like — all these finding root in poverty, the chief
source o± crime and disease ; that prayers and piety affi^rd
no protection against fever, and that if the human being be
kept without food he will starve as quickly whether he be
Theist or Atheist, theology being no substitute for bread.

Iconoclast.

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HERESY :

A PLEA AND A JUSTIFICATION.

By Charles Bradlaugh.

Contents : — First chapter — Definition and Plea for He-
resy. Second chapter- — The Heresies of Martin Luther,
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Telesio, Cardan, Bruno, Gentilis, Servetus, and others.
Third chapter — Vanini, Charron, Descartes, Hobbes, Her-
bert of Cherbury, Gassendi, Peyrere, Spinoza, Cudworth,
Burnet, Locke, Bayle, Tindal, Toland. Fourth chapter
' — Mandeville, Berkeley, Butler, Lord Bolingbroke, Hume,
Montesquieu, Voltaire, Helvetius, D'Holbach, Priestley,
Gibbon, Cabanis, Paine, Dupuis, Volney. Statement of
Heretical Progress.

C. Watts, 17, Johnson's Court. Fleet Street, EX